Author Dan Joseph discusses the first ever Lou Gehrig Day on the Bookspeak Network
June 2, 2021 is MLB’s first ever Lou Gehrig Day. Teams and fans across Major League Baseball will be celebrating the incredible career of Lou Gehrig and raising awareness and funds for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It’s still incurable, but with great efforts like the league-wide Lou Gehrig Day, we too can #fightALS. More information on the campaign is available at LG4Day.com.
Dan Joseph is an author and expert on Lou Gehrig.
Dan Joseph is a Washington-based journalist, editor and writer, and a senior editor in the Voice of America's central newsroom. He is the author of Last Ride of the Iron Horse, the first book to examine Lou Gehrig's 1938 season, Gehrig's last full year in the Yankee lineup as he began to battle symptoms of the fatal disease ALS.
In addition to being an author, Dan is a baseball historian who discovered the radio clip of Gehrig saying that Babe Ruth DID call his shot in the 1932 World Series. The video has now been viewed more than 210,000 times on YouTube and Twitter.
Here is the clip of Lou Gehrig confirming that Babe Ruth called his shot.
In the video, Lou Gehrig can be heard on NBC radio discussing how Ruth called his shot. Known as an honest guy, it’s easy to believe Gehrig’s speech heard on the radio that day. MLB.com wrote a bit more about his discovery here.
Here is our audio interview with Dan Joseph about Lou Gehrig Day:
In this thirty-minute interview with Lawrence Knorr, Dan Joseph discusses the creation of MLB's first ever Lou Gehrig Day as well as some details about Gehrig's battle with ALS and Joseph's role in confirming Ruth's called shot.
About Dan Joseph's Last Ride of the Iron Horse
How Lou Gehrig Fought ALS to Play One Final Championship Season
For much of the 1938 season, Gehrig -- dubbed the Iron Horse for his strength and reliability -- struggled with slumps and a mystifying loss of power. Fans booed and sportswriters called for him to be benched. Then, as the Yankees battled for the pennant in August, Lou began pounding home runs like his old self -- a turnaround that in retrospect looks truly miraculous. It may have been a rare case of temporary ALS reversal.
Using rare film footage, radio broadcasts, newspapers and interviews, author Dan Joseph chronicles Gehrig's roller coaster of a year.
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