Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Never before had there even been such a dominating figure [as Gehrig was] in any other sport that had to retire in such a depressing and shocking matter. From these first lines of Gehrig's speech, I believe Aristotle's pathos can easily be seen. Here he is a man who is dying from a rare disease that nobody had ever heard of before and instead of being mad at the world for his career being shortened, he can only say that he feels that he is "[t] he luckiest man on the face of the earth". I think this shows just how grateful Gehrig really was to be playing ball all of those years and he is trying to show the audience how much their support for him through the years really meant to him. He's not asking the fans to feel sorry for him or to weep out their eyes, but that he"d rather make this a joyous day where people should be thankful for all they have and what they've accomplished in their lives.
"I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans." The audience that Gehrig is speaking to that day obviously is the fans at Yankee Stadium, but he isn't only speaking to the fans there at that moment, but also to all the people listening on radio and all the fans throughout his seventeen years in the league that helped make his career an enjoyable success. In this sentence he truly is getting the audiences full attention and applying to them. While they are realizing, just how special of a man Gehrig truly is. Gehrig is really tapping into the audience's emotions in my opinion. He is giving the audience a sense of amazing worth that because they stood by their home team hero for so many years that he's now giving back, telling them that he could had never had all his success and accomplishments hadn't they not been such great fans.
Gehrig's second paragraph of his speech continues on speaking about why he is so, "Lucky".