Growing up in the 1930s, I was an avid baseball fan. My favorite team was the New York Yankees, and my favorite players were Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio. They all subsequently became prominent members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but only one of them—Lou Gehrig—became forever linked with medicine. Consequently, he shares the batter's box in this editorial.
Lou Gehrig was perhaps the best first baseman of all time. Amid American sports heroes, his extraordinary achievements on the playing field, combined with his humility, kind-heartedness, and generosity, put him in a class by himself. He was
