Eleanor Gehrig, the widow of Lou Gehrig, the great Yankee first baseman of half a century ago, died Tuesday night at Presbyterian Hospital. She was 79 years old, and had been ill since last August. Since her husband’s death in 1941, Mrs. Gehrig had lived quietly in her apartment on the East Side.

When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’s the finest I know. Ruth was moved to tears by Gehrig’s 277-word speech.

It was on July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, when the longtime Yankee first baseman uttered the famous words at a home plate ceremony at Yankee Stadium: “For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Lou Gehrig’s “Farewell to Baseball” speech has maintained its effectiveness to this day because Gehrig had established himself among the people of his time as an admirable and truly appreciative man as well as presented the theme of hope in an emotionally-appealing way that would continue to be a universal theme for …

The speech came just after Gehrig had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurogenerative disease that affects an estimated 20,000 Americans every year, according to the ALS Association.

Gehrig has a pathos tied up in his speech because he knows he is going to die due to a disease, ALS. His mentioning of a tough break represents his soon death, but his views on his life show hope and acceptance. His third paragraph shows the great things he got during life, the things he considers blessings.

Although his address was unrehearsed, Lou Gehrig managed to include all three rhetorical appeals; ethos, pathos, and logos. He employed ethos when he talked about his long career, solidifying his credibility by saying, “I have been in ballparks for seventeen years..” (para.