The Iron Horse ◆ Facing a Devastating Illness with Courage

Chunichi Shimbun, Morning Edition, August 18, 2006

This year, the Central League has been energized by the strong performance of the Chunichi Dragons, and the city of Nagoya, where I live, is buzzing with excitement. With the summer high school baseball tournament at Japanese High School Baseball Championship also reaching a fever pitch, I would like to introduce a baseball film.

The Pride of the Yankees (1942, USA), starring Gary Cooper as the legendary “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig, beautifully captures the atmosphere of Major League Baseball in its golden age.

Gehrig, the great first baseman of the New York Yankees, formed what was feared as the “greatest third-and-fourth batting combination in history” together with home run king Babe Ruth. His career batting average was an astonishing .340, and in 1934 he achieved the coveted Triple Crown. Yet what made him even more famous was his incredible streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.

Raised in poverty, Gehrig was known as a tireless worker, a devoted family man, and someone deeply loved by both fans and teammates. The film carefully portrays his rise to glory, his marriage, and his affectionate yet overbearing mother. Remarkably, Babe Ruth himself appears in the movie.

But success does not last forever. In the latter half of the 1938 season, illness suddenly struck. Gehrig found himself unable to untie the laces of his spikes and stumbling over curbs in the street. His arms and legs no longer moved as they should.

His declining batting average failed to recover the following season, and eventually he personally asked his manager to end his consecutive-games streak. Two years later, he passed away at the age of thirty-seven.

The disease that struck down the Iron Horse was Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which later came to be known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.” It is a devastating illness in which the nerves controlling movement gradually deteriorate, causing muscles throughout the body to waste away until movement itself becomes impossible.

Even so, Gehrig remained an “Iron Horse” to the very end. The film closes with the famous retirement ceremony scene. His words resonate deeply:

“I have been given nothing but kindness and support. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Through his humility, extraordinary achievements, and courageous struggle against illness, Lou Gehrig became an immortal sports hero.