Lou Gehrig
Ziad Ghareeb P:2

Lou Gehrig attended college at the University of Columbia. In fact, he went there on a football scholarship but ended up being a better baseball player than football. He was such a standout in baseball that after one of his games playing first base, the New york Yankees offered him a major league contract that had a signing bonus of $1,500. Lou gladly accepted and joined their minor league team in Hartford. After thriving in the minors, Lou was called up to the majors after almost thirty at-bats. When Lou began to thrive the New York Yankees, who were already a powerhouse in professional baseball with Babe Ruth, they became a unstoppable duo. With Babe's incredible power and Lou's balance of power and contact hitting made a great compliment bat to Babe. Lou Gehrig was an extremely durable player, in fact until 1995, he had a record for the most consecutive games played with 2130 games in a row which earned him the nickname "Iron Horse".

After struggling in the 1938 season people knew something was wrong. He was checked out by doctors and had a disorder that no doctor had ever seen before. He was diagnosed with a new congenetive disease which they called Lou Gehrig's disease. Lou Gehrig's disease (now formally known as ALS) ended Lou's baseball career. ALS is a disease that deteriorates all cognitive action in the body, it can result into paralysis and can take away the ability to speak. A year after his diagnosis he gave his famous "Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech saying his goodbye to baseball and the New York Yankees organization. This is one of the most emotional speeches still in the history of sports.Following his speech he was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame that December with his career stats being .340 batting average with 1888 RBI's and 493 home runs. On June 2, 1941 Lou Gehrig succumbed to ALS at the age of 37.

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