Gehrig, Lou

Lou Gehrig

1903-1941

American baseball player

Lou Gehrig, dubbed the "Iron Man" of baseball, is best known for his record for most consecutive games played, 2,130, which he held from his retirement in 1939 until Baltimore Orioles player Cal Ripken, Jr. surpassed him in 1995. Gehrig also had an impressive bat: he holds the Major League record for career grand slams (23), and, until St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire 's phenomenal slugging streak, Gehrig held the record for most career home runs by a first baseman (493). He stole home plate fifteen times in his career, and his lifetime batting average, .340, is the fifteenth highest ever. However, to many Gehrig is remembered primarily for the disease which took his life and his name.

Growing Up

Gehrig was born in Manhattan in 1903 to Christina and Heinrich Gehrig, both recent immigrants from Germany. He was the only one of their children to survive past infancy. Because of this, Gehrig and his mother developed an extremely close relationship. Although the Gehrig family was lower-middle class, Christina Gehrig worked hard as a maid, cook, and washerwoman to make sure that Gehrig had every opportunity to succeed. From a young age Gehrig helped his mother, delivering the washing that she took in, but he still found plenty of time to play.

Gehrig excelled at all of the sports which could be played on the streets of New York, including his favorite, baseball. In the summer, he and his friends often dove into the Hudson River, off of the cliffs at 181st Street where the George Washington Bridge would later be built. When he was eleven Gehrig swam the whole way to New Jersey and back from this point, which reportedly earned him a boxing on the ears from his father. Dangerous

stunts aside, the elder Gehrig encouraged Lou's physical development, often taking Gehrig along when he went to the turnvereins, gymnasiums where German-American men gathered. Heinrich Gehrig also bought Lou his first baseball glove.

Taste of Fame

Christina Gehrig dreamed of Gehrig going to college and becoming an engineer, even though at that time it was rare for working class children to continue their education beyond the eighth grade. After Gehrig graduated from grammar school, she arranged for him to attend the High School of Commerce, where he learned useful clerking skills like typing and bookkeeping. He also gained some fame as a player on Commerce's football, soccer, and baseball teams. Commerce won three straight soccer championships in his years there, and in 1920 Gehrig was even invited to play in a national high-school baseball championship game in Chicago with the Commerce team.

Christina Gehrig was dismayed at her son's continued interest in baseball, a sport which was only for "bummers" as far as she was concerned, and it took a great deal of pleading for Gehrig to convince her to let him take the trip to Chicago. The Commerce team traveled to Chicago on an elegant train, where former president William Howard Taft and other dignitaries stopped by to wish them well. In the ninth inning of the game, which was played in Wrigley Field, Gehrig hit a grand slam home run—a rare feat, for in the entire Major League season the previous year, only eighteen home runs had been hit at Wrigley Field.

Gehrig did not only play baseball with his school's team. The summer Gehrig was sixteen, he pitched in a Yonkers city league on the Otis Elevator Company team, since he had gotten an office job with that company for the summer. He also earned $5 a game playing semi-professional ball with the Minqua Baseball Club, which was sponsored by one of the many Democratic clubs which covered New York in those days. The fact that Gehrig was now making money from baseball went a long way to reconciling Christina Gehrig to the sport.

In Gehrig's senior year at Commerce, Christina took a job as a maid and cook at one of Columbia University's fraternity houses, where she made a connection with Columbia's graduate manager of athletics, Bobby Watt. Watt came to a Commerce game and watched Gehrig play football one day, and he was impressed enough to give Gehrig a football scholarship to the university.

College Ball

Although it was against the rules for college players to earn any money from their sport, this was a widely violated rule. Scores of college-age men played in the minor leagues over the summer under assumed names, and in 1921, months after graduating from high school, Gehrig was one of them. He signed a contract with the Hartford Senators, a Class A team affiliated with the New York Giants. For two weeks he played under the name "Lou Lewis," but then Columbia found out and forced him to quit. Gehrig lost his eligibility to play for Columbia for one year as a result, but for the next two summers he played semi-professional baseball on Sunday afternoons with a Morristown, New Jersey team as Lou Long. This was widely known, but no one is sure whether Columbia never found out this time, or whether they knew and decided to ignore it.

Gehrig played his one and only season of baseball for Columbia, as a pitcher, in 1923. He was almost instantly heralded as a star. In one game, he set a record for number of strikeouts—seventeen—which would stand at Columbia for almost fifty years. In another, he hit the longest home run ever at Columbia's South Field: it bounced off the steps of the library across 116th street, nearly beaning the dean of the college. Through such feats, Gehrig caught the eye of New York Yankees scout Paul Krichell, who offered him $3,500 to sign with the Yankees. Gehrig did. Although it disappointed his mother to see him drop out of school, both of Gehrig's parents were ill at the time and the family desperately needed the money.

The Beginning of a Legend

Gehrig started playing for the Yankees in June of 1923. As the story goes, his first meeting with the team was stunning. At the beginning of that first practice, before most of the team was on the field, several of the Yankees best hitters, including Babe Ruth , were taking some extra batting practice. Manager Miller Huggins escorted Gehrig onto the field and encouraged him to take a few swings. Gehrig grabbed a bat at random. It happened to be Ruth's favorite, a forty-eight ounce monster that was too heavy for most players to handle. Gehrig's nervousness showed as he missed a few pitches, then hit a few weak ground balls. Then some of his friends from Columbia, who were sitting in the bleachers providing moral support, started to shout encouragement to him. "Show that big guy, Lou. He's not the only one that can hit it out of the park," one said, referring to Ruth. Gehrig proceeded to hit some half-dozen balls into "Ruthsville," the section of the right-field bleachers where many of Ruth's hits wound up. The veteran Yankees were stunned, while Gehrig's friends only got louder in their cheers. Embarrassed, Gehrig walked away from the plate.

Gehrig made his major league debut only weeks later, on June 16. He spent much of the 1923 and 1924 seasons in the minor leagues, playing for the Hartford Senators, but he was learning the confidence he needed to play big-league baseball. He was called back to the Yankees in late August of 1924 and became an invaluable pinch-hitter, and in 1925 he joined the starting line-up.

Chronology

1903	Born June 19 in New York, New York
1921	Enters Columbia University
1923	Debuts in the Major Leagues
1925	Consecutive games played streak begins June 1
1933	Marries Eleanor Twitchell September 29
1938	Stars in the Western film Rawhide
1939	Consecutive game streak ends at 2,130 on May 2
1939	Retires from baseball
1941	Dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis June 2 in Riverdale, New York
1942	The Pride of the Yankees is released

Awards and Accomplishments

1927, 1936	Named the American League's Most Valuable Player (MVP)
1931	Sets the American League record for most runs batted in in one season (184)
1932	Becomes the first and only player to bat in more than 500 runs in three years
1934	Wins the American League Triple Crown
1939	Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
1939	Becomes the first athlete ever to have his number retired

Gehrig began his consecutive games streak on June 1, 1925, when he pinch-hit for shortstop Peewee Wanninger. The next day, June 2, Gehrig started at first base. The Yankees already had a good first baseman, the crowd-pleasing Wally Pipp, but that morning Pipp had been struck in the head with a pitch during batting practice. He spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from his injuries, and by the time he returned Gehrig was well established at first base. Pipp was eventually traded, and from June 2 on, Gehrig would play in every single game the Yankees played until 1939.

Glory Days

The Yankees of the late 1920s and the 1930s were legendary. With Gehrig and Ruth, they had the two most powerful hitters in their league; it was not uncommon for each of them individually to have more home runs in a year than many entire teams. Although the Yankees lost a close series in 1926, by 1927 they seemed invincible. Ruth set a record that year with sixty home runs, while Gehrig, the cleanup hitter, set his own record with 175 runs batted in. The Yankees became the first American League team ever to sweep the World Series, and then in 1928 they did it again. Although they did not play in a series again until 1932, the team still had an amazing record in the intervening years. In the 1931 season they set a record with 1,067 runs batted in; Gehrig's contribution to that total, 184 (including three grand slams in four days), is still an American League record.

In 1933, Gehrig became engaged to Eleanor Twitchell, a high-spirited socialite from Chicago. They were married that September in a quiet, private wedding one morning in their new apartment, close to the house which Gehrig had bought for his parents a few years before. Immediately after the wedding, a phalanx of motorcycle-riding police from their town, New Rochelle, escorted the couple to Yankee Stadium: not even getting married could make Gehrig miss a game.

In 1935, Ruth finally left the Yankees and, for one season, Gehrig was the team's uncontested star. Then Joe DiMaggio joined the team, and once again Gehrig was relegated to second place, batting clean-up behind a star. However, Gehrig, always a team player, did not resent

DiMaggio. Later in life, DiMaggio told the following tale: early in his first season with the Yankees, DiMaggio turned around and gave a look to the umpire, George Moriarty, after Moriarty had called two borderline balls as strikes. Moriarty, a long-time umpire who was not cowed by young stars, harshly told DiMaggio to turn back around. Gehrig, who was standing in the on-deck circle, shouted, "Leave the kid alone, George. If you call 'em right, he won't have to turn around."

With DiMaggio and Gehrig, the "Bronx Bombers," as the Yankees were dubbed, won two straight World Series over the New York Giants in 1936 and 1937. Gehrig still played on, going to work every day through broken fingers (at one point or another in his career, he broke every single finger at least once) and through the attacks of back pain which had recently started to plague him. Although occasionally stunts were employed to keep the streak alive, such as having Gehrig bat first and then immediately replacing him with a pinch-runner on days when his back pain was most excruciating, Gehrig was still one of the best, most reliable players in the game.

Gehrig, 'Iron Man' of Baseball, Dies at the Age of 37

…When Gehrig stepped into the batter's box as a pinch hitter for the Yankees on June 1, 1925, he started a record that many believe will never be equaled in baseball. From that day on he never missed a championship game until April 30, 1939—fifteen seasons of Yankee box scores with the name of Gehrig always in the line-up….

But as brilliant as was his career, Lou will be remembered for more than his endurance record. He was a superb batter in his heyday and a prodigious clouter of home runs. The record book is literally strewn with his feats at the plate….

But baseball has had other great hitters before, and other great all-around players. It was the durability of Gehrig combined with his other qualities that lifted him above the ordinary players and in a class all his own.

Source: New York Times (June 3, 1941): 1, 26.

During the off season after the 1937 World Series, Gehrig went to Hollywood and starred in a Western film called Rawhide. This wasn't his first attempt at Hollywood stardom—there had been some talk of Gehrig replacing Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, and some amusing photographs of Gehrig posing in a loincloth even appeared—but it was by far his most successful, even if the reviews were mixed.

The End of the Streak

Gehrig hit the 2,000 consecutive games played mark on May 31, 1938, but shortly thereafter problems started surfacing. Gehrig was no longer hitting like he used to. His batting average that season fell below .300. The rest of the Yankees made up for it, winning the pennant and sweeping the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, but it was clear that something was wrong. Gehrig came back in 1939, but he soon realized that his poor playing was hurting the whole team. On May 2, 1939, after 2,130 consecutive games, Gehrig voluntarily benched himself. In June, the Mayo Clinic diagnosed Gehrig with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which would soon become known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Gehrig formally retired from baseball on July 4, 1939, in Yankee Stadium, where he gave one of the most memorable speeches in the history of sports, declaring himself to be "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He spent 1940 working as a parole commissioner for New York City, interviewing various convicted criminals, but by the beginning of 1941 he was too weak to work any more, even on crutches. He died on June 2, 1941.

Career Statistics

Yr	Team	AVG	GP	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB
NYY: New York Yankees.
1923	NYY	.423	13	26	6	11	1	9	2	5	0
1924	NYY	.500	10	12	2	6	0	5	1	3	0
1925	NYY	.295	126	437	73	129	20	68	46	49	6
1926	NYY	.313	155	572	135	179	16	112	105	73	6
1927	NYY	.373	155	584	149	218	47	175	109	84	10
1928	NYY	.374	154	562	139	210	27	142	95	69	4
1929	NYY	.300	154	553	127	166	35	126	122	68	4
1930	NYY	.379	154	581	143	220	41	174	101	63	12
1931	NYY	.341	155	619	163	211	46	184	117	56	17
1932	NYY	.349	156	596	138	208	34	151	108	38	4
1933	NYY	.334	152	593	138	198	32	139	92	42	9
1934	NYY	.363	154	579	128	210	49	165	109	31	9
1935	NYY	.329	149	535	125	176	30	119	132	38	8
1936	NYY	.354	155	579	167	205	49	152	130	46	3
1937	NYY	.351	157	569	138	200	37	159	127	49	4
1938	NYY	.295	157	576	115	170	29	114	107	75	6
1939	NYY	.143	8	28	2	4	0	1	5	1	0
TOTAL		.340	2164	8001	1888	2721	493	1995	1508	790	102

The Pride of the Yankees

Lou Gehrig's life story was brought to the big screen in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees. Written by renowned Hollywood screenwriters Jo Swerling (of It's a Wonderful Life ) and Herman J. Mankiewicz (of Citizen Kane ) and nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, The Pride of the Yankees was a major success. Gehrig was played by Gary Cooper, a well-regarded actor, but not one with a natural affinity for baseball. This led to some difficulties filming the baseball scenes. Most notably, since Cooper was right-handed and Gehrig batted with his left, the batting scenes were filmed in reverse, with the players wearing mirror-image uniforms and Cooper batting right-handed and running to third. Although The Pride of the Yankees showcases Gehrig's famous hard work and dedication to the game, its most affecting moments are about Gehrig's tender and supportive relationship with his wife, Eleanor, who was played by Teresa Wright. Many actual Yankees, including Babe Ruth, played themselves in the film.

Immortality

Gehrig passed into the pantheon of baseball immortals almost immediately upon his retirement. The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted him in the summer of 1939, ignoring their usual five-year waiting period. His #4 was retired, making him the first player ever to be so honored. Baseball diamonds across the country were named for him, as was a Liberty ship during World War II. His life story was dramatized in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees. By facing death with the same courageousness with which he had faced life every day, Gehrig finally achieved the fame that he deserved.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Bak, Richard. Lou Gehrig: An American Classic. Dallas: Taylor, 1995.

Gehrig, Eleanor, and Duran, Joseph. My Luke and I. New York: Crowell, 1976.

Robinson, Ray. Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time. New York: Norton, 1990.

Periodicals

"Eleanor Gehrig." Time (March 19, 1984): 92.

"Gehrig, 'Iron Man' of Baseball, Dies at the Age of 37." New York Times (June 3, 1941): 1, 26.

Neff, Craig. "A Stamp of Greatness." Sports Illustrated (June 19, 1989): 16.

Noonan, David. "Double Legacy of the Iron Horse." Sports Illustrated (April 4, 1988): 112-120.

Robinson, Ray. "A Two-Horse Race." Sporting News (September 11, 1995): S8.

Other

Baseball-Reference.com. http://www.baseball-reference.com/ (October 8, 2002).

Lou Gehrig Home Page. http://www.lougehrig.com/ (October 8, 2002).

National Baseball Hall of Fame. http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/ (October 8, 2002).

Sketch by Julia Bauder