Before the Iron Man, there was an Iron Horse.

From the mid-1920s through the 1930s, no baseball player emphatically represented baseball (outside of Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio later) than Lou Gehrig. As the first baseman for the Yankees, he was one of the biggest hearts of the 1927 Yankees' Murderer's Row. In 1927, he batted .373, hit 47 home runs, and knocked in 173 RBIs, winning the first of two MVPs (the other in 1936). In 1932, he became the first player in the Modern Era (and in AL history) to hit four home runs in one game. And in 1934, he won the AL Triple Crown (but not the MVP, which belongs to Mickey Cochrane, the Tigers' catcher at the time).

During his career with the Yankees, his numbers were amazing. His lifetime batting average was .340 (his complete slash line being .340/.447/.632 with 493 home runs (twenty-three of them grand slams, the most in history until Alex Rodriguez broke it last September), 534 doubles, and 1,995 RBIs. His 185 RBIs in 1931 remains the American League record.

But what made him extra special was his capability to play every single game, something only a rare breed of players can do then and now. June 1, 1925 was the day his iconic steak began.

Afterwards, he played game after game through aches and pains, including "supposedly" broken fingers.

In 1938, he played in his 2,000 consecutive game.

1938 saw a small decline in his performance, but doable nonetheless. But in 1939, after a horrid spring training, he performed badly, going 4-28 with only one RBI. On May 2, 1939, he took himself out of the lineup, ending his streak at 2,130 games (which wouldn't be surpassed until 1995 by Cal Ripken, Jr.).

Unfortunately, he would never play again.

One month later, after a trip to a Mayo Clinic, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rare and incurable motor neuron disease, on June 19th, his thirty-sixth birthday.

Seventy-five years ago today, during a double-header against the Washington Senators, Gehrig was honored before a crowd of around 61,000 at Yankee Stadium. Along with the 1927 Yankees and several dignitaries (including Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia) in attendance, he had several gifts, two of them being:

1. The retirement of his #4 jersey retired, becoming the first player with that honor.
   
2. Quoted from this website:
    

   
   The most talked about present Gehrig received was a silver trophy with all the Yankee players' signatures on it presented by McCarthy. Inscribed on the front was a poem the Yankees had asked Times writer John Kieran to pen:
    
   "We've been to the wars together,
   We took our foes as they came;
   And always you were the leader,
   And ever you played the game.
   Idol of cheering millions;
   Records are yours by sheaves;
   Iron of frame they hailed you,
   Decked you with laurel leaves.
   But higher than that we hold you,
   We who have known you best;
   Knowing the way you came through
   Every human test.
   Let this be a silent token
   Of lasting friendship's gleam
   And all that we've left unspoken.
   - Your Pals on the Yankee Team"
    
   This trophy, though valued in 1941 to be worth $5, was one of Gehrig's most prized possessions.

Moved by the warmth from everyone around him as well as fear, he almost didn't speak. Initially, he was going to be escorted back to the dugout with manger Joe McCarthy. But after the crowd chanted, "We want Gehrig!", McCarthy nudged him to the microphone.

He spoke to the crowd:

Here is the full text:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

 

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

 

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

 

"So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."

 

— Lou Gehrig

On December 7, 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame elected him into Cooperstown through a special election as a result of the disease. On June 2, 1941, seventeen days prior to the second anniversary of his diagnosis, Gehrig passed away at 37 years old. The following month, the Yankees dedicated a monument to him in center-field beside former manager, Miller Huggins (which would later be joined by Babe Ruth in 1949; Mickey Mantle in 1996; Joe DiMaggio in 1999; the 9/11 victims and rescue workers on September 11, 2002; and George Steinbrenner in 2010).

Bibliography:

1. http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id12.html
   
2. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gehrilo01.shtml
   
3. http://lougehrig.com/about/news/07-02-14.html
   
4. http://steelyankee.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-luckiest-man.html
   
5. http://www.biography.com/people/lou-gehrig-9308266
   
6. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-first-basemen-recite-lou-gehrig-s-luckiest-man-speech-in-honor-of-75th-anniversary-070214
   
7. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/04/the-stacks-the-day-lou-gehrig-delivered-baseball-s-gettysburg-address.html
   
8. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats4.shtml
   
9. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/296823-triple-crown-winner-lou-gehrig-no-mvp
   
10. http://www.myyesnetwork.com/go/thread/view/82290/29142761/This_Week_in_Yankees_History_May_27th-June_2nd
    
11. http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-mystery-of-lou-gehrigs-farewell-speech-1403889963