3 What was the author's purpose in writing this passage?
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to explain how no one could break the impressive record set by Lou Gehrig
to describe how and when "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" is celebrated
to describe Lou Gehrig's remarkable baseball career and show how he faced and accepted ALS
to explain what ALS is, how it affected Lou Gehrig's body, and how it can be prevented
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Lou Gehrig
On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig gave one of the most famous
speeches in sports history. The occasion was "Lou Gehrig
Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium in New York. Parts of the
speech are well known to this day: "Fans, for the past two weeks
you have been reading about the bad break i got. Yet today!
consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." The
audio recording of his voice echoing throughout the stadium has
been replayed countless times.
The "bad break" Gehrig alluded to in his speech was his
contraction of a fatal disease known as amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, or ALS, ALS is a neuromuscular disease that attacks
nerve cells in the central nervous system, causing paralysis and
eventually death. No one knows what causes ALS, and nearly
30,000 people in the United States live with the disease. Because
of Gehrig's extreme celebrity and the tragedy of his death, ALS is
commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Before the symptoms of ALS began causing problems for
Gehrig, he was one of the greatest baseball players in history
known as the "The Iron Horse" because of his durability. Gehrig
played in 2,130 straight games without an absence. The streak
was cut short by Gehrig's retirement due to ALS. The streak of
2,130 consecutive games stood for 56 years until it was broken by
Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995. Sixty years after he retired, fans made
him the leading vote-getter for the Major League Baseball All-
Century Team
Over 70 years later, what many remember about Gehrig is his
humbleness. He always recognized that he was, in his own words,
"the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He had been given
extraordinary athletic ability and played on of the greatest
baseball teams in history. He had loving, supportive parents and a
wife of tremendous bravery. He was able to do what he loved
most, play baseball, for 16 seasons. Though he died only two
short years after his disease was diagnosed, Gehrig will long be
remembered.