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Remembering The ‘Iron Horse’ As a first baseman for the New York Yankees baseball team, Lou Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games from 1925 to 1939, setting a major league record and had a career batting average of .340. He once hit four home runs in a game, and to this day still holds many other major league records. On July 4, 1939, he stood before more than 60,000 fans at Yankee Stadium and confirmed what everyone seemed to know, that the "Pride of the Yankees" had been [dealt a terrible blow.] diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (now often called Lou Gehrig's disease), a rare disease that causes spinal paralysis, Gehrig gave one of the most poignant and meaningful speeches in sports history. This speech was much more than a speech given by a regular old ball player who was calling it quits. This was a speech that came in a time of need and that turned the heads of millions of baseball fans. It redefined and set the tone of what ball players really are; everyday human beings with hearts, bodies, and souls, like the rest of us. Ball players may have been looked at as if they were indestructible and emotionless, but this speech Gehrig gave illustrated clearly that baseball is just a game and that there are m