History
The New York Yankees started this tradition in the late 1930s, when they held individual days to celebrate the lives of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth while each was near death, but still very much beloved by their fans. Quite possibly the most well-known of the early Old-Timers' Days is Lou Gehrig Day, held on July 4, 1939. After hearing tearful speeches from friends and former teammates who had seen his career cut short by the illness, ALS, which would come to bear his name, Gehrig delivered a short speech referred to by many as the Gettysburg Address of baseball. Gehrig's declaration that he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth is thought by many to be the most famous line ever uttered by a baseball player.
Read more about this topic: Old-Timers' Day
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)