Gehrig’s dignity a world away from Kidd’s big gamble
It will be 75 years to the day since Lou Gehrig gave one of the most memorable sporting speeches of all time as he retired suddenly from baseball to prepare for his relatively fast slide towards death — less than two years of suffering after almost two decades of glory in the Bronx.
Like something out of a Hollywood movie, Gehrig’s voice shimmered around Yankee Stadium as he told the gathered fans that even though it was true what they had read, he still considered himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.
Manhattan born and bred, Gehrig was the improbably pristine foil to the lout who hit just ahead of him in the batting order, Babe Ruth.
Together as part of “Murderers’ Row”, they dominated the 1920s and 30s and the ever-dependable Gehrig played 2,130 consecutive games until his body began to surrender to the debilitating effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He benched himself for the sake of the team early in 1938 and he would never play again.
“I may have had a tough break,” he said as he closed that July 4 speech, “but I have an awful lot to live for.”
It’s a speech which of course falls deep into the realm of sporting cliche and it is a tragedy retold so often that it loses its meaning and maybe even some of its credibility. Mystery even surrounds the real author of the words, and plenty of speculation abounds.
There has never been a time when baseball hasn’t been anything but a staged exposition of all that’s great about America, with such a milestone anniversary coinciding with Friday’s action, the most traditional of sports might spontaneously combust on Friday if it isn’t careful.
But of course there has always been room in baseball to enjoy plenty of jokes at its expense. The prime modern example of this was the era-defining sitcom Seinfeld first aired on US television screens 25 years ago this week.
Although that pre-internet New York is only partially recognisable these days, most of the scenarios still ring true and everyone still has their favourite bits. But there’s a whole subsection dedicated to the irrational wonder of sport in general, and baseball in particular.
Most obvious are the fictitious inner workings of the Yankees, represented refreshingly as obnoxious bedlam just as the real-life version was about to stir awake from almost two decades of a sleeping giant slumber.
So often, the absurdist storylines attached to New York icons like Keith Hernandez — the “pretty boy” of the Mets — and George Steinbrenner — the madcap owner of the Yankees — were only a couple of degrees beyond reality.
I was thinking of one of that show’s characters, George Costanza, this week when keeping track of the only other newsworthy topic in US sport that doesn’t involve the World Cup: the NBA equivalent of the transfer window which opened officially this week and revealed itself once again to be a tradition worthy of absurdist comedy.
The chess moves and horse trading employed by teams to try and maximise their squads’ depth under the limits of the salary cap is a fascinating glimpse into what soccer fans and media would enjoy if there were similar rules in place.
Players and general managers pull all sorts of stunts to stay under the threshold (or pay through the nose to go over) but the most Costanza move of the lot belonged to Jason Kidd, the now former coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
A year ago, Kidd was given the chance to run team affairs as soon as he retired from playing. He was handed the controls of a side loaded with ability (on paper anyway) that blew so far past the salary cap that the Brooklyn Nets’ total loss including the luxury tax for going over the cap was well in excess of €100m.
In spite of all that, Kidd was unhappy and opted for a game of poker with his bosses. Pay him more, he demanded, or he would take a job offer in Milwaukee, of all places.
Brooklyn happily chose the latter option, and the young coach is now house- hunting in Wisconsin, a tough place from which to build back up after a brutal fall from grace for such a legendary player.
It was a perilous poker move worthy of the Seinfeld treatment. But Lou Gehrig would have been appalled.
