Pride Of The Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic - Sandomir B +

                                              This is the story of two remarkable American heroes. Lou Gehrig is rightfully considered one of our greatest athletes, finest gentlemen, and is the man who gave the most famous speech in the history of sports, a speech that has been referred to as baseball's Gettysburg Address. His tragic early end is known to sports fans and students of American history. Gary Cooper is the actor who pulled off the cinematic depiction of that speech with such humble strength that it is seared in the memory of all who have seen it. April 25th, 1939 marked  the end of Gehrig's string of 2130 starts over fourteen years for the fearsome Yankees. He was disintegrating before everyone's eyes and pulled himself from the starting lineup.  Six weeks later, doctors at the Mayo clinic told him he had ALS. He made his 'luckiest man' speech at the Stadium on July 4th. He finished the season on the Yankees' payroll, and thanks to Fiorello La Guardia, spent a year as a Commissioner of the NYC Parole Board. He died on June 2, 1941, two weeks before his thirty-eight birthday.  Samuel Goldwyn acquired the rights to a biopic, cast Coop in the lead role and signed the Babe and Bill Dickey to play themselves. Cooper spent six weeks trying to learn to play baseball as a lefty. Throughout the film, Babe Herman, a Dodger great, and a natural southpaw, did most of the heavy lifting. The focus of the film, however, was not baseball, but the romance between Lou and Eleanor. Theresa Wright became famous for her portrayal of Eleanor Gehrig and she and Coop, pulled off the perfect on screen love affair.  Ironically, of the speech itself, only a few sentences have survived in a newsreel. It is the movie version depicted by Cooper that has become a stand-in for  the real thing. The film was a rousing success, was nominated for 10 Oscars and became a patriotic stand-by as the war took over American society.  After a request to give the speech on the first night of a USO tour, Cooper gave it every night thereafter during his time in the Pacific. In his final appearance, a few months before he died in 1961, he said,"If anyone asks me if I'm the luckiest guy in the world? My answer is yep."  This is a sweet book and once again, leads me to question being raised a Dodger fan.