There are all kinds of heroes in this world. The folks whom you admire for taking a stand against injustice, people who inspire you to create things to inspire others & those who spark some sort of emotion in your heart.
Lou Gehrig was the latter for me. Make no mistake about it, Lou was a New York Standard all his own.
I won’t belabor here all the amazing things that many know about Lou Gehrig, but he was a rare, rare man. He was kind, gentle, strong & extremely well-educated (attended Columbia University). I won’t belabor this because it’s almost not the point, but it is part of what made him the man he was. You can also find loads of information online & off about Lou.
I was moved to see two tributes this week & that’s what I wanted to share here. The first is from Keith Olbermann at ESPN who did a splendid job of giving context that I’d never heard related to what was one of the greatest speeches ever given – turns out, it was completely impromptu & was close to never happening. Strikingly, we don’t have all 276 words of the speech Lou gave that day. Keith fills in the blanks herein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbaeBHEt5uk
The second is a clip of other, active major leaguers filling in the blanks. It’s particularly touching because it gives one hope that these men – who so often act like children – may just “get it” yet.