Gary Cooper as the Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth

Gary Cooper delivering the most famous speech in baseball. Image: otsoNY.com

Even if you’re not a baseball fan – or a classic movie fan – you know this line:

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

You can just hear it, can’t you, echoing over the stadium PA system.

It’s from a 1943 movie called The Pride of the Yankees, a film about the real-life ball player, Lou Gehrig, who played first base for the New York Yankees from 1923-1939.

The film follows Gehrig’s life from a child of working-class immigrants to his career as a professional ball player.

In the film, Gehrig is played by Gary Cooper who looks the part of a professional ball player. We (as in, yours truly) quite like Cooper as the straight-laced, gum chewing Gehrig.

Teresa Wright plays Gehrig’s wife, a smart woman with just enough…