Lou Gehrig

My hero is Lou Gerhig. He was a baseball player for the New York Yankees. Lou was known as a fighter all his life, and he fought off a terminal spinal disease called amyotrophical lateral sclerosis (ALS) from the years 1939 to 1941. He was also voted the team’s most valuable player in the years 1927 and 1936, part of his baseball career from 1925 and 1939.

Lou Gehrig was the child of a poor German-American family that the previous generation of had just moved to America (Yorkville, specifically). Lou was one of four children that the Gehrigs had, but he was the only one to survive. He was a big baby, weighing 14 pounds at birth. The Gehrig family then moved to Washington Heights. Being German, and living in the 1910-1940 time period, he was also harassed mercilessly, being called “little Heinie” and such.

Normally, people of Lou’s poverty stricken background didn’t go to school past grade school, but with the help of his mother, and since he worked hard at everything he did, he was able to go to high school. In the autumn of 1917, Gehrig started high school a Commerce High, where he continued to work hard and he was an above-average student. In addition to the busy life of going to high school and doing odd jobs for money, Lou also found time for sports. This was the start of Lou’s climb to the major leagues.

Lou was very good at what he did, and that was sports. In high school, Lou led the soccer team to three championships in a row, and helped the baseball team win the national baseball championships. Gehrig’s mother worked as a cook for a fraternity house on the Columbia College campus, and she knew the director of athletics. Lou was awarded a scholarship there after graduating from Commerce, and he played baseball there as well. As he played, he was being closely watched by Paul Kritchell, the talent scout for the New York Yankees. After finishing that season, Lou signed with the Yankees, and his mother wasn’t very happy with that. She thought her son should do something in engineering. Every time she was interviewed by a reporter, she liked to remind them that Lou had once been in college for learning and knowledge. During his major league days, Lou hit 23 grand slams, a record as yet unbroken, and appeared in 2130 consecutive games, a record not broken until 1995.

Lou Gehrig has made a difference in my life because his life has shown me to never give up. Lou went out still fighting and I admire that, He also has shown me that if you work at anything hard enough, anything can be achieved.