Lou Gehrig - They Just Don't Make ‘em Like They Used To  

What One Baseball Player Taught Me About Gratitude, Perspective, and the Sports-Card Hobby We Sometimes Take for Granted

There are certain moments in history that don't seem to age. You can hear the words decades later and somehow they still land with exactly the same weight.

For me, one of those moments happened on a baseball field in New York on July 4, 1939.

I wasn't there, obviously. I wasn't even close to being born. Hell, my parents weren't even around yet. But I digress.

As an American boy growing up in the 1980s, I was fortunate to have the upbringing I did. I came from a stable, middle-class family with an older brother and an older sister, and the three of us were raised with the same principles and morals.

From the beginning, we were taught that hard work is a reflection of who you are and what you represent. If you put your mind to something, no dream was unattainable. Respect your elders. Question anything your instincts tell you to question. Do the right thing, even when nobody is watching.

It was, in many ways, a pretty standard 1980s American upbringing, built around some very simple core values: honesty, integrity, responsibility and hard work.

Oh yeah, and there was one other thing I almost forgot. At the very core of our upbringing was one mandatory, non-negotiable rule: WE WILL PLAY SPORT.

Whether you liked it or not, it wasn't even an option.

From a very young age, there was an unspoken sense of duty, pride and tradition attached to our family name. To be an Abrahamson meant you played sport. And you finished what you started.

There would be no quitting because things got hard. No walking away because you weren't as naturally gifted as someone else. My parents understood the value of participating in sport, and team sport in particular. Because losing mattered.

They wanted us to experience defeat. To taste it. To understand what it felt like to fail, so we could learn how to rebound from it. We were taught to listen to our coaches, believe in the system and, if you couldn't get onboard for the coach's sake, then get onboard for your teammates' sake.

Because at the end of the day, you would always lose as a team. But you would also win as a team.

I still remember that terrible taste of defeat when I was seven years old. I remember how embarrassed I felt. But more than anything, I remember how determined I became never to feel that way again.

All I wanted to do was practice. Practice, practice and more practice. All winter long.

I was growing mentally just as much as I was physically. My edge eventually became my baseball IQ, the thing that would separate me from some of the more naturally gifted athletes around me.

It wasn't because I spent countless hours with my dad while he smashed adult-sized ground balls at me, although I certainly did. You could see it in Dad's eyes. He was a proud papa, moulding his little dude into a young man who understood dedication, responsibility and what it meant to become something useful to a winning team.

It never comes easy. You have to work for it. And that's exactly what I experienced from the beginning.

From Little League, beginning with Sunset Little League in 1982, all the way through

college ball, my success came in the wake of failure. I didn't walk onto that Little League field as some gifted natural athlete like some kids did.

I had to earn every inch.

What eventually became a baseball scholarship wasn't the result of some extraordinary natural ability. It was the finished product of squeezing every ounce of ability I had out of myself, learning the game, working relentlessly and listening to the people who were willing to push me when I needed that extra boost.

To my coaches. To my parents. To all the unlikely heroes who helped shape my journey. And to one who stands above them all Mr. Lou Gehrig.

I wasn't much older than ten years old when I first heard Lou Gehrig's farewell speech to baseball.

It wasn't exactly life-changing the first time I heard it. I was ten. At that age, I simply assumed he was another Yankee legend hanging up his cleats and retiring from the game.

I didn't really understand. Then Dad explained it to me. So we played it again. And again. And again. Eventually, I saw with crystal clarity what my dad had been trying to convey.

The goosebumps that radiate through me every time I hear that speech today are just as powerful as they were when I was ten years old and discovered that Lou Gehrig wasn't simply a Yankee legend.

He was a man staring directly into a future he knew was going to take everything from him, and yet somehow he stood there with nothing but appreciation, gratitude, respect and love for everything life had given him.

That's not just a hero standing there. That's a man. And perhaps, in the simplest sense, that's what all boys should strive to become.

Lou Gehrig's farewell speech has stayed with me ever since. And every time I hear it, I'm reminded of something we can all forget from time to time:

Sometimes, we need to be humbled before we can truly appreciate how lucky we are.

And maybe that's where the sports-card hobby comes into this story. Because somewhere between the cardboard, the numbers, the grades, the parallels, the chase cards and the next big pull, it's easy to forget what we're actually holding in our hands. We're holding pieces of history. Pieces of people's dreams. Pieces of our own memories. And sometimes, we just need to stop chasing the next card long enough to appreciate the ones we already have.

My unlikely hero 

I don't have a long list of heroes.

The few people I do consider heroes aren't necessarily the people you'd expect. They're people who, for one reason or another, helped shape how I think about life, character and what it means to be a good man.

Lou Gehrig is one of those people. The funny part? He played for the New York Yankees.

As a lifelong rival of the Yankees, that should probably disqualify him immediately. It doesn't. Gehrig was one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. He spent his career in pinstripes during the 1920s and 1930s, becoming the Yankees' legendary first baseman and earning the nickname "The Iron Horse" after playing 2,130 consecutive games.

And he played alongside another baseball legend who needs almost no introduction: Babe Ruth.

Imagine being a pitcher in that era. You finally get through Babe Ruth......and Lou Gehrig is standing there waiting for you. Ruth was everything Gehrig wasn't. Babe was larger than life. Charismatic. Funny. Loud. He loved the spotlight and the spotlight loved him right back.

Gehrig was different. Quiet, humble, team-oriented. He didn't seem particularly interested in becoming a celebrity. He just wanted to play baseball, play it well and do his job. The two men had very different personalities, and their relationship wasn't always smooth. But over time, they developed a genuine friendship. And when Ruth's career ended, Gehrig became the man at the centre of the Yankees' universe. But he never really became a Babe Ruth.

He didn't need to. He became Lou Gehrig.

And that's where the lesson begins.

The man behind the numbers

It's easy to look at baseball players through statistics.

Batting average, Home runs, RBIs, Games played, Records, Awards. 

We do exactly the same thing in the sports-card hobby.

PSA 10, Population count, Last sale, Market value, Rookie card, Investment potential. Numbers give us something tangible to measure. But numbers don't tell us everything about a person. Gehrig's greatest statistic might actually have been the way he carried himself.

For years, he simply showed up. Then, in 1939, something was terribly wrong. His body wasn't cooperating anymore. The player who had been almost impossibly durable suddenly couldn't perform the way he once had. He eventually removed himself from the lineup, bringing his legendary consecutive-games streak to an end. Doctors would soon determine that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

He was only 35 years old & his baseball career was abruptly over. His life was changing in a way nobody could reverse. And on July 4, 1939, the Yankees held Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium. More than 61,000 people filled the stadium. Lou Gehrig walked to the microphone.And what he said next has stayed with me ever since.

"Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth"

Everyone knew Gehrig had been dealt a devastating hand. Yet he didn't stand there and ask people to feel sorry for him. Instead, he thanked them. He talked about his teammates. His managers. His parents. His wife. The people who had supported him throughout his life.

And then came the words that have echoed through sports history:

"Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

Think about that for a moment. Really think about it. This wasn't a motivational speaker standing on a stage talking about overcoming adversity.

This was a 35-year-old man whose professional baseball career had just been taken away from him by a fatal disease. He knew what was happening to his body. He knew what the future held. And still, he looked backward and saw something different.

He saw what he had been given. A career. Teammates. Family. Friends. A life filled with experiences. He acknowledged the bad break.But he refused to let the bad break erase everything good that had come before it.

He finished his speech with another line that, to me, says everything: "I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for." That's Lou Gehrig. And that's the part that humbled me.

So what does this have to do with sports cards?

Pretty much everything. Because sometimes I think we forget how lucky we are to be part of this hobby. We complain about card prices. We complain about print runs.We complain about grading companies. We complain when a card that we thought was going to explode in value... doesn't. We complain about breakers. Retail allocations. Bots. Flippers. Resellers. Bad collation. Panini. Topps. Fanatics. You name it.

And don't get me wrong. I've complained about plenty of it myself. That's part of being a collector. But every once in a while, I think we need to take a step back. Because look at where we are.

We live in an era where I can wake up in Adelaide, Australia, and within minutes see cards being bought, sold and traded all over the world. I can research a player I've never seen play. I can watch his highlights. I can look at his statistics. I can compare card sales.I can find a card from his rookie season sitting halfway around the world and potentially have it in my collection days later. I can buy a card from a player who played 100 years ago. I can hold a tiny piece of baseball history in my hand. That's pretty damn cool.

The modern sports-card industry is enormous, global and still evolving. Even companies outside the traditional hobby ecosystem are now chasing the collectibles market, with recent reports showing trading-card and collectibles sales becoming a major part of GameStop's business. Whatever you think about the direction of the hobby, one thing is undeniable:

We're living through an incredible time to be a collector.

Maybe the hobby isn't the problem

Maybe sometimes our perspective is. We spend so much time asking: "What is this card worth?" Perhaps we should occasionally ask: "What is this card worth to me?" Those are two completely different questions. A card can be worth $500 to the market and almost nothing to you. Another might be worth $5 to the market and be one of the most important cards you own. Maybe it's the first card your dad bought you. Maybe it reminds you of a childhood hero. Maybe you pulled it with your kid. Maybe you chased the player for years before finally finding the card. Maybe it's simply a player whose story you connected with. That's the magic of collecting. The market can put a number on cardboard. It can't put a number on the memory attached to it.

We collect pieces of history

And perhaps that's why Lou Gehrig belongs in a conversation about sports cards. Because when we collect cards, we're not really collecting cardboard. We're collecting moments in time. Collecting people’s careers, their stories and lives. We are simply collecting figments of history in essence every card is a little time capsule. And somewhere inside that piece of cardboard is the human being who once dreamed of doing something extraordinary.

Lou Gehrig did. But his greatest lesson wasn't how many home runs he hit. It wasn't his batting average. It wasn't even his incredible consecutive-games streak. It was what he did when life stopped playing fair. He chose gratitude. He chose dignity. He chose to remember everything he had rather than obsess over everything he was losing. Where he could have chosen the opposite and given a pass for it as most people would expect one to be bitter, lost and scared and take the ‘poor me’ attitude. Even though he’d naturally have those emotions too, that’s what it takes to be a real man. You feel this inside but you stand proud and strong and let the world remember you for the greatness of Lou Gehrig the man behind the ballplayer

A little perspective

So the next time I'm staring at a card that's dropped 30 percent in value, maybe I'll remember Lou. The next time I miss out on a card I really wanted, maybe I'll remember Lou. The next time the hobby frustrates me, maybe I'll remember Lou. Because there are worse things than missing out on a card. There are worse things than paying too much. There are worse things than a bad grade.

Sometimes we need to zoom out. Look at the bigger picture.And appreciate that we're here at all.

We get to chase our favourite players. We get to trade with strangers who become friends. We get to open packs and feel like kids again. We get to argue about who the next superstar is going to be. We get to hold history in our hands. And perhaps most importantly, we get to collect something that connects generations.

That's something.

The luckiest collectors on Earth?

I don't know if we're the luckiest collectors on Earth. But I do know this: We're pretty damn fortunate. And every once in a while, history has a way of reminding us.

For me, that reminder comes from a quiet Yankees first baseman who stood in front of more than 61,000 people while facing a future nobody would wish on another human being.

He could have talked about what had been taken from him. Instead, he talked about what had been given to him. That's what Lou Gehrig taught me about being a man.

Not that strength means never getting knocked down. Not that courage means you're never afraid. And not that life will always give you a fair shake. Sometimes courage is simply looking at the hand you've been dealt and saying: I've still got an awful lot to live for.

And maybe that's something we could all use a little more of in this hobby. A little more perspective & gratitude. And a little more appreciation for the fact that we're lucky enough to be holding a piece of history in our hands in the first place.