Lou Gehrig

Lou Gehrig is the protagonist in the 1942 biopic The Pride of the Yankees; based on the real-life baseball player. He was portrayed by Gary Cooper who also portrayed Will Kane in High Noon.
== Biography ==
Lou Gehrig is a young Columbia University student whose old-fashioned mother wants him to study hard and become an engineer, but the young man has a gift for baseball. A sportswriter befriends Gehrig and persuades a scout to come see him play. When his mother gets sick, Gehrig signs with the team he has always revered, the New York Yankees to pay for the hospital bills. With the help of his father, he endeavors to keep his career change a secret from his mother.
Gehrig works his way up through the minor leagues and joins the Yankees. His hero, Babe Ruth, is at first condescending and dismissive of the rookie, but his strong, consistent play wins over Ruth and the rest of the team. Gehrig is unknowingly included by his teammates in playing pranks on Ruth on the team train.
During a game at Comiskey Park, Gehrig trips over a stack of bats and is teased by a spectator, Eleanor(the daughter of the ballpark hot dog magnate) , who laughingly calls him "tanglefoot". Later, they are properly introduced, leading to a relationship, and then an engagement. Gehrig's mother, who still has not accepted the fact that her son will not be an engineer, does not take this news well; Gehrig finally stands up to her, and marries Eleanor.
The Yankees become the most dominant team in baseball, and Gehrig becomes a fan favorite. His father and fully converted mother attend games and cheer for him. In a re-creation of a famous (and possibly apocryphal) story, Gehrig visits a crippled boy named Billy in a hospital. He promises to hit two home runs in a single World Series game in the boy's honor—then fulfills his promise.
Gehrig is now the "Iron Horse", a national hero at the peak of his career with multitudes of fans, many loyal friends, and an adoring wife. Then he begins to notice, with growing alarm, that his strength is slowly ebbing away. Though he continues to play, and extends his consecutive-game streak to a seemingly insurmountable record, his physical condition continues its inexorable decline. One day, in Detroit, he tells Yankees manager Joe McCarthy that he has become a detriment to the team and benches himself. After an examination, a doctor gives him the awful news: Gehrig has a rare, incurable disease, and only a short time to live.
A short time later, at Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium, an older Billy finds Gehrig and shows him that he has made a full recovery, inspired by his hero's example and the two-homer fulfilled promise. Then, as Eleanor weeps softly in the stands, Gehrig addresses the fans: "People all say that I've had a bad break. But today ... today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
==Trivia==
* In 2003, Gehrig was named the 25th greatest movie hero of all time by the American Film Institute.
Category:Movie Heroes
Category:Fictionalized
Category:Categories Needed
Category:Male
Category:Tragic
Category:Selfless