What does the 4th of July mean to baseball fans? Who was the first major league player to go on the disabled list?
It was the legendary New York Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig, who played in 2130 consecutive games from June 1925 to April 1939 (a record that stood until Carl Ripken Jr. broke it in September 1995). After his last game, he went straight to the hospital and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (later called Lou Gehrig’s disease after his death). With the declaration that he had three years to live at most.
Lou Gehrig’s condition was announced to the public on June 19. The Yankees organized a retirement ceremony for the dying legendary slugger. Lou Gehrig, nicknamed the Iron Horse, hesitantly stepped to the microphone on July 4, 1939, in front of a packed house at Yankee Stadium in New York City. He wiped away tears. “Fans, you may have heard some bad news about me in the last two weeks, (but) today I consider myself the luckiest man in the world. For the past 17 years, I have enjoyed your goodwill and encouragement on the baseball field,” he began his speech.
Referring to the owners, managers, teammates, spectators, players of the New York Giants (the Yankees’ fiercest rival at the time), and even the groundskeepers, Lou Gehrig said that he was honored to be among them and that he was a lucky man. This speech is known as the Gettysburg Address of baseball.
Lou Gehrig later battled an illness and passed away on June 2, 1941. The MLB office has designated June 2 as Lou Gehrig Day.
This July 4 marked the 84th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s speech, and the New York Yankees welcomed another special baseball figure to the stadium. Sarah Lange, who currently works as a journalist and analyst (statistician) for Major League Baseball, announced her diagnosis last October. On this day, the Yankees hosted Sarah Lange and six other people living with ALS.
Lange graduated from the University of Chicago and interned at the New York Daily News and CSN Chicago before joining ESPN in 2015 as a sports content researcher, becoming a senior researcher in 2018 and joining MLB in 2019. Lance has been providing insightful and knowledgeable information and opinions about Major League Baseball on MLB and through his social media accounts.
On March 30 of this year, Lance published an analysis of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day on MLB.com, “Want to look smart ahead of Opening Day? Here’s one key stat for each team. In the article, Lance wrote, “For the Philadelphia Phillies, look no further than Trea Turner, who put on a show at the World Baseball Classic, hitting five home runs to tie the WBC record for most home runs in a single tournament with South Korea’s Lee Seung-yup in 2006. Not only that, but Turner’s five home runs are also the most in a WBC game by a Team USA player. Turner’s 11 RBIs are the third-most in a single tournament and the second-most in a Team USA career, behind David Wright’s 15,” he wrote. On April 10, when Kim hit his second home run of the season, Sarah Lance wrote that it was the fifth-lowest pitch he’s ever hit since Statcast began measuring batted balls in 2015. On this particular day, Lance said, the ball was about 25 centimeters above the ground.온라인바카라
At a press conference and event organized by the Yankees, Lance said, “I don’t give up. Baseball doesn’t stop. Unlike other sports, baseball continues every day, so for me, baseball not stopping means I’m not going to stop either. I love baseball. It’s so important to bring attention (like today) to young women with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It’s so important to bring attention to young women with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) because we can spread the word that not everyone with this disease looks like Lou Gehrig.”