Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech Inspires Philadelphia Artist

Lou Gehrig's 1939 speech inspires a Philadelphia artist to raise money for ALS charities.

Yankees reporter Max Goodman joins Sports Illustrated's Madelyn Burke to discuss Daniel Duffy, a Philadelphia artist who used his talents to honor Lou Gehrig while raising money for charity.

Read for the Full Video Transcript:

Madelyn Burke: A Philadelphia artist is putting his distaste for the Yankees aside for a good cause. Dan Duffy made an illustration of Lou Gehrig from the words of his 1939 farewell speech and the proceeds from the work are going to benefit three different A.L.S. charities. Joining me now is Yankees reporter Max Goodman. Max, for it's a very interesting story. I understand that he had to get permission from the Gehrig family to put this up. How did this come about?

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Max Goodman: So Dan works in word art illustration. So he takes letters and words, draws them out first with a pencil in black and white, and as he adds more colors and shading when you take a step back from the image, it actually looks like a picture or a painting. In reality, it's just those words and letters. So he's been at this in this craft for over a decade now, huge Philadelphia Phillies fans. So when the Yankees beat them in the 2009 World Series, he was devastated. It took him almost a decade to actually work on another Yankees piece. But this Gehrig one was something that he had worked on years and years ago. And now during the coronavirus pandemic, he reached out to the family to get permission to release this. And it's on his Web site. 

Charles Colon/TSN/Icon SMI

It's out of words. And the proceeds from this portion of them will go to the Lou Gehrig Society and Project Mainstreet. And those are local in New York. But the cool thing is that he's done plenty of different word art illustrations for baseball, his favorite sport. So if you go onto his site and get something from the Houston Astros championship or the Washington Nationals championship, a portion of those proceeds will go to local A.L.S. charities that because of this virus, they can't have their fundraisers and their events and auctions right now. So the money is going directly to those who are living with A.L.S. and need those funds.

Madelyn Burke: Really tremendous talent, really creative work of art, and a great cause, of course. Max Goodman, thank you so much for the story.

Max Goodman: Thank you.

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