美国英语听力80篇3 Lesson48
Lou Gehrig (B)
Gehrig continued to improve as a player.
By 1924, pitchers for opposing teams were having bad dreams about Lou Gchrig and Babe Ruth.
Ruth hit sixty home runs that year.
Gchrig hit forty seven and won the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.
Nobody was surprised when the Yankees won the World Series.
Gehrig, however, almost did not play.
His mother had to have an operation.
He felt he should bc with her.
Mrs Gehrig and the Yankees' manager urged him to play in the World Series.
His mother recovered.
More major threats to Gehrig's record of continuous games played took place in 1929.
His back, legs and hands were injured.
He was hit on the head by a throw one day as he tried to reach home plate.
Another Yankee player said, "Every time hc played, it hurt him."
Gchrig felt good in 1930.
He said his secret was getting ten hours of sleep each night and drinking a large amount of water.
Lou Gehrig now was becoming one of the greatest players in baseball history.
He hit three home runs in the World Series of 1932.
His batting average was five-twenty nine.
The manager of an opposing team, the Chicago Cubs, said of Gehrig,
"I did not think a player could be that good."
In 1933, Gehrig married Eleanor Twitchell.
Eleanor helped him take his place as one of baseball's most famous players.
The younger Lou Gehrig had stayed away from strangers when he could.
The married Lou Gehrig was much more friendly.
As time went on, Gehrig played in game after game.
He appeared not to have thought about his record number of continuous games played
until a newspaper reporter talked to him about it.
An accident during a special game played in Virginia almost broke the record.
Gehrig was taken to a hospital after being hit in the head with a pitch.
He played the next day, though.
He just wore a bigger hat so people could not see his injury.
Gehrig completed his 2,000th game on May 31st, 1938.
That was almost two times as many continuous games as anyone ever had played before.
Gehrig finished that season with a batting average of almost 300.
He scored 115 runs.
He batted in almost as many runs.
But the Lou Gehrig of that year was not the Lou Gehrig of earlier years.
He walked and ran like an old man.
He had trouble with easy catches and throws.
Yet his manager commented, "Everybody is asking what is wrong with Gehrig.
I wish I had more players on this club doing as poorly as he is doing."
Gehrig thought his problems were temporary.
Then he fell several times the next winter while ice-skating with Eleanor.
He had trouble holding onto things.
And he failed to hit in three games as the next season opened.
In May 1939, he finally told his manager he could not play.
Lou Gehrig had played in 2,130 games without missing any that his team played.
Gehrig observed his thirty-sixth birthday on June Nineteenth.
That same day, doctors told him he had a deadly disease that attacks the muscles in the body.
The disease is called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Today, it is known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
Gehrig did not act like a dying man, though.
He refused to act frightened or sad.
On July 4th, 1939 more than 60,000 people went to Yankee Stadium to honor one of America's greatest baseball players.
Gehrig told the crowd he still felt he was lucky.
(His words) echoed throughout the stadium.
"I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."
Gehrig fought his sickness.
But he became weaker and weaker.
He died on June 2, 1941, He was thirty-seven years old.
America mourned the loss of a great baseball hero.
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