Full text version of the Farewell Speech
"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

"So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

I've always wondered what the odds are that he got a disease that had the same name as him...so freaking weird.

*groan*

Given that outside the US he's only known for giving his name to a disease (perils of playing in what globally amounts to a minority sport, I guess) what's the basis for that claim.

I'm not being an ass when I ask this, but isn't that an accolade that would be better suited to an actual athlete?

If you're going to give that honour to anyone then immediately it's Jesse Owens that springs to mind. There are plenty more queuing behind him.

Even in the field of baseball isn't it generally considered that Babe Ruth was the greatest player ever?

This is a personal statement. I am a huge fan.

Lou Gehrig was an actual athlete, why would you say otherwise?

I'd only call someone an athlete if they did athletics.

I'd not call a footballer an athlete, or a cricketer, a baseball player or a darts player.

Gehrig was, unless I'm mistaken, a baseball player.

I do think that baseball players are athletes. But is sports are so varied, it would be impossible to pick the greatest. I changed my post description to clarify.

We'll have to disagree there as as far as I'm concerned, athletics is a strict discipline of track and field events and the term athlete applies only to participants in this discipline.

I also wonder if it's a Plime thing that this didn't (from any quarter) become a screaming match along the lines of "WTF?!!!1!!. Lou Gehrig was nothing insert sports star here was much better. You know nothing about sports. I can tell by the pixels."

Sorry to say it, Pock, but I think the scholarly public disagrees with your strict definition. According to Princeton, the word "athlete" is defined as: "a person trained to compete in sports."

Webster's defines "athlete" as: "a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina."

No mention of any specific sport (although like you, I don't think of a darts player, even a pro, as an athlete).

I do like the fact that this didn't become a screaming match like you said, though. :)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary it's defined as a person who competes in track and field events.

That's the definition I would go with, and you have to admit there's an undeniable logic* to limiting the scope of an athlete to athletics as it is an established discipline.



*Yes, I know full well that expecting logic from English is a foolhardy venture but I embrace it on the odd occasion that I find it.