LUCKIEST MAN The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

Babe Ruth was the perfect baseball player for the Roaring ’20s. But during the 1930s, the man identified most with baseball was Lou Gehrig, the talented but hard-working player who never missed a game until he took himself out of the New York Yankee lineup in 1939. He died in 1941 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurological disorder that now bears his name. Jonathan Eig’s biography covers Gehrig’s baseball career in detail, but his coverage of Gehrig’s battle with ALS is what separates this from other biographies. Edward Herrmann is excellent as the reader. His voice takes on an almost youthful enthusiasm when he reads gushing newspaper reports. The audiobook includes an excerpt from Gehrig’s farewell speech. The only criticism is that the abridgment is a little choppy in covering parts of the slugger’s baseball career. R.C.G. 2006 Audie Award Winner © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 05]