Talk about speaking to influence…
Here’s a great example from 70 years ago.
I’m kind of a baseball historian and it was very cool to read that Major League Baseball is honoring Lou Gehrig on the 70th anniversary of his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. It will be read at every ballpark tomorrow during the 7th inning stretch. Interesting that the actual speech was slightly altered for the movie, The Pride of the Yankees. In his original speech, he gave the famous phrase about being “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” as the second line. In the movie (three years after his speech), the writers felt it would have more impact for Gary Cooper to read it at the end.
Gehrig was no dummy. He was a Columbia grad but I doubt he thought his speech would live on like it has.
To read the speech or watch footage of it, go to http://www.lougehrig.com/about/speech.htm
