Lou Gehrig

The last story of Unit 5 centers on the life of Lou Gehrig, a phenomenal baseball player for the New York Yankees, who died at the young age of 37 from a disease which would eventually be named after him: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.

We will be watching a movie next Wednesday about Lou titled, The Pride of the Yankees.  Gary Cooper plays Lou, Teresa Wright plays Eleanor, and former teammates Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Bob Muesel, and Mark Koenig play themselves.  Released during World War II (1942), the film chronicles Lou's humble beginnings as a son of German immigrants, his development into one of the finest players baseball has ever seen, the comedically portrayed courtship and eventual life-long marriage to Eleanor, and the last years of his life.  Also in the movie is the Irving Berlin song, Always, sung (and performed) by Bettye Avery; something that was commonplace in the movies of yesteryear but rarely utilized now.  Shown in black-and-white, it is sure to be an experience for the students as they learn more about one of America's heroes.
Read more about the movie here: 
1) IMDB's entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035211
2) Wikipedia's entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pride_of_the_Yankees
3) Amazon's entry (and reviews): http://www.amazon.com/The-Pride-Yankees-Gary-Cooper/dp/B000069HZY.

As Lou was fighting the disease, he wrote letters to friends and various medical staff.  With his wife Eleanor's help, he was able to stay in touch with them.  In each of the letters, you can sense the roller coaster of feelings Lou had: hope, desperation, confidence, fear, and courage.  And of note, the letters between Lou and Dr. Paul O'Leary are showcased.

"On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Gehrig's famed "Luckiest Man" speech, Ancel, a sports memorabilia collector, and The Rip Van Winkle Foundation, which oversees the Gehrig estate, have agreed to let ESPN make a large group of selected letters public -- in their authentic, original form -- for the first time. Author Jonathan Eig wrote of the letters and excerpted from some of them in his 2005 biography of Gehrig, "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig." The correspondence between Gehrig and Dr. Paul O'Leary provides a rare and exclusive look at the documentation of Gehrig's decline."

The collection of letters can be found here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/flash/gehrigletters#/letters/earlystages

Here is a video (about 5 minutes long) about the Lou's letters: http://espn.go.com/mlb/flash/gehrigletters#

Finally, here are some more interesting questions and tidbits:
- Who IS Henry Louis Gehrig?
- Hear his farewell speech and read the transcript.
- "Visit" his plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
- Did you know you can "visit" his gravesite?