Lou Gehrig

Lou Gehrig gave an interview on Aug. 22, 1939, to Dwight Merriam from KROC-AM radio in Rochester, Minn., where Gehrig was receiving treatment for ALS at the Mayo Clinic. He gave his thoughts on many baseball topics, including the game’s best players, night games, the prospect of a players’ union, and what young players need to do to succeed.

On playing in the World Series, Gehrig said, “Now personally, I was always as tight as a drum before the game, before the World Series game. The constant milling around, the hundreds of photographers, the hundreds of newspapermen, and the thousands of requests for autographs on scorecards and baseballs and things like that. They tend to tense a ballplayer up. But the minute that bell rang and the field was cleared and the first ball was thrown and the first ball hit my glove, then I was just as relaxed and it was just another ballgame after that.”

The transcript originally appeared in the Society for American Baseball Research’s journal The National Pastime #17, pages 13-16 (PDF).

To learn more about Lou Gehrig, read his profile on findingDulcinea.