Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

Additional Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig Information

Drawing on new interviews and more than two hundred pages of previously unpublished letters to and from Gehrig, Luckiest Man gives us an intimate portrait of the man who became an American hero: his life as a shy and awkward youth growing up in New York City, his unlikely friendship with Babe Ruth (a friendship that allegedly ended over rumors that Ruth had had an affair with Gehrig's wife), and his stellar career with the Yankees, where his consecutive-games streak stood for more than half a century. What was not previously known, however, is that symptoms of Gehrig's affliction began appearing in 1938, earlier than is commonly acknowledged. Later, aware that he was dying, Gehrig exhibited a perseverance that was truly inspiring; he lived the last two years of his short life with the same grace and dignity with which he gave his now-famous "luckiest man" speech.

Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man shows us one of the greatest baseball players of all time as we've never seen him before.

What Customers Say About Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig:

I found this book to be an excellent history of Lou Gehrig's life.It was the right mix of stories, statistics and photos. It takes the reader through his childhood, the consecutive games streak and then his untimely death. How ironic that a man known as the "Iron Horse" would be no match against ALS now known as Lou Gehrig's disease. I am not an avid reader but found this book to be a page turner and would recommend it highly.

This was a gift for my uncle, who they suspect has Lou Gehrig's Disease.and he's not a reader.but has really enjoyed this book.and has related to it, and gotten some comfort from it. To me, that makes this a very wise investment.

It well written and well documented book on Lou Gehrig. The author has found some up to date information not previously known or publized to make an interesting book. This author pacts more info into a paragraph than most do in a chapter or more.I would also highly recommend his newest book on "Al Capone".

This is a review of the Lou Gehrig biography, "Luckiest Man," written by Jonathan Eig and published by Simon and Schuster in 2005.For those who do not know, Lou Gehrig was the stalwart, slugging first baseman of the legendary Babe Ruth-led New York Yankees team that roaredthrough the 1920s and eventually morphed into the streamlined Joe DiMaggio-led Bronx Bombers of the 1930s.The subtitle of this biography is "The Life And Death Of Lou Gehrig,"which accurately describes the contents of this book. And Gary Cooper really does resemble Lou Gehrig in many ways except his voice. But that subtitledoes not accurately describe the gracefulness with which this book is written.The book does a very good job describing Gehrig's early years, the struggle to survive and how his German immigrant parents sacrificed much so theirLouie could have the best they could afford. And, unlike many children,young Lou Gehrig understood and appreciated their efforts which surely inspired him to go to great lengths to achieve what he did although his parentsdid not really understand the concept of professinal sports.But where this book really shnes is the printing of the many letters from Lou Gehrig to his wife discussing the possibilites of the fatal diseaseand detailing his fight to beat what eventually he had to accept washis killer.Lou Gehrig was an admirable man to the very end and I recommend this book to anyone as a source of inspiration, a baseball biography,a treatise on American life a century ago or just a good read.The film, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is still one of the all-time great baseballmovies as well as a darn good biography. Lou Gehrig had what we would call a New York accent and if you want to see /hear him in action he did star in a 1937 B western called RAWHIDE that, while no great shakes as a movie, displays what Lou Gehrig really talked like and even how he carried hmself in real life.So I have rated Jonathan Eig's "Luckiest Man, " five stars because it echos,in its prose and its subject, a man who we were lucky to sort of know, even at the great distance of many decades.

fast read, interesting for both a sports fan or not. the game today needs more lou gerhig's.