Signed ticket from Lou Gehrig retirement game hits auction

NEW YORK (AP) - A ticket stub signed by Lou Gehrig on July 4, 1939 - the day he retired from baseball - is going on the auction block.

Heritage Auctions says more than 60,000 tickets to the game at Yankee Stadium were sold. Only two are known to have survived.

Of the two, only the mezzanine box ticket was signed by Gehrig. It is estimated to bring more than $100,000 at the Aug. 1 sale in Cleveland.

The owner is an unidentified collector.

Gehrig retired after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, now known as Lou Gehrig's disease. In his farewell speech that day, he said, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

Heritage's director of sports memorabilia, Chris Ivy, calls it "the most significant baseball ticket in the world."