A Lou Gehrig ticket stub signed by the Major League Baseball legend on July 4, 1939 — the day he retired from the game — is expected to fetch more than $100,000 when it’s put up for auction in Cleveland next month.
Heritage Auctions told the Worcester Telegram that the voucher is one of only two tickets still around from the 60,000 sold at Yankee Stadium on that day, and it's the only one with Gehrig's signature on it. The ticket is from a mezzanine box seat, the newspaper noted.
The signed ticket is ''the most significant baseball ticket in the world,'' Chris Ivy, Heritage's director of sports memorabilia, told the Telegram.
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Gehrig, who played 17 seasons with the New York Yankees, was 36 when he left the game after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, now known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," he said in his emotional, heartfelt farewell speech. He died just two years later.
Gehrig was best known for his endurance and even once held the record for consecutive games played with 2,130, earning him the nickname the "Iron Horse." Cal Ripken, Jr. would eventually break the record and play in 2,632 straight games for the Baltimore Orioles, a streak that ran from
1982 to 1998, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The ticket auction comes on the 75th anniversary of Gehrig's departure from baseball and his "luckiest man" speech, which is considered one of the most iconic in sports history.
"Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day would turn out to be the most poignant and emotionally charged event in the history of New York sports, thanks largely to the 277 words the guest of honor spoke that day — deep and simple sentiments, straight from the heart of an immigrant's son from Yorkville," the
New York Daily News wrote Saturday in recognition of the speech.
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