The jersey worn by Lou Gehrig in his last look at Yankee Stadium has been bought at an public sale held by Christie’s along side Hunt Auctions for $2.712 million. It’s the highest quantity paid for a chunk of Gehrig memorabilia.
Many baseball followers have seen footage of Gehrig’s well-known “Luckiest Man” speech, delivered on July 4, 1939, at Yankee Stadium. In it, he expressed his gratitude for the Yankees and their followers earlier than he was pressured to retire resulting from being identified with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — which later got here to be often known as “Lou Gehrig’s illness.”
However the last time he appeared in uniform at Yankee Stadium was on Oct. 5, 1939, throughout Sport 2 of the World Sequence towards the Reds. Gehrig, one of many best gamers of all time and a Corridor of Fame first baseman, handed away on June 2, 1941.
The July 4th speech was a tragic however inspirational second in baseball historical past, broadly recognized amongst followers of the game. However many is probably not conscious that Sport 2 of that 12 months’s World Sequence was the ultimate time Gehrig was in uniform at Yankee Stadium — he had remained with the membership on the bench after his then-record 2,130 consecutive video games performed streak got here to an finish.
