This week, the excerpt is not the text of the speech Gehrig gave on Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. The excerpt from Richards Vidmer's column in the Herald Tribune about Gehrig's speech.
Throughout Lou Gehrig's career there was always the feeling he lacked that mythical something called color. Perhaps he did. And yet now that his playing days are over he has more color than almost any athlete in the game. Somehow I felt that at the Stadium yesterday they were honoring not a great baseball player but a truly great sportsman who could take his triumphs with sincere modesty and could face tradgedy with a smile. His records will attest to future generations that Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, but only those who have been fortunate enough to have known him during his most glorious years will realize that he has stood for something finer than merely a great baseball player -- that he stood for everything that makes sports important in the American scene.
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