Lou Gehrig

Gehrig during his rookie year, 1923

Gehrig and Hank Greenberg in 1935

Gehrig joined the New York Yankees midway through the 1923 season and made his major-league debut as a pinch hitter at age 19 on June 15, 1923. Gehrig wore the number "4" because he hit behind Babe Ruth, who batted third in the lineup.[34] In his first two seasons, he saw limited playing time, mostly as a pinch hitter – he played in only 23 games and was not on the Yankees' 1923 World Series roster. In 1925 he batted .295, with 20 home runs and 68 runs batted in (RBIs).[35]

Unlike Ruth, Gehrig was not a great position player so he played first base, often the position for a strong hitter but weaker fielder.[21] The 23-year-old Yankee's breakout season came in 1926, when he batted .313 with 47 doubles, an American League-leading 20 triples, 16 home runs, and 112 RBIs.[30] In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and four RBIs. The Cardinals won the series four games to three.[36]

Gehrig, Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, and Babe Ruth, 1928

In 1927 Gehrig put together one of the greatest seasons by any batter in history, hitting .373, with 218 hits: 101 singles, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, a then-record 175 RBIs (surpassing teammate Babe Ruth's 171 six years earlier), and a .765 slugging percentage.[30] His 117 extra-base hits that season are second all-time to Babe Ruth's 119 extra-base hits in 1921[30] and his 447 total bases are third all-time, after Babe Ruth's 457 total bases in 1921 and Rogers Hornsby's 450 in 1922.[30] Gehrig's production helped the 1927 Yankees to a 110–44 record, the AL pennant (by 19 games), and a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. Although the AL recognized his season by naming him league MVP, Gehrig's accomplishments were overshadowed by Babe Ruth's 60-home-run season and the overall dominance of the 1927 Yankees, a team often cited as having the greatest lineup of all time – the famed "Murderers' Row".[37]

Ruth's celebrity was so great that Gehrig's ghostwritten syndicated newspaper column that year was called "Following the Babe".[21] Despite playing in the shadow of Ruth for two-thirds of his career, Gehrig was one of the highest run producers in baseball history; he had 509 RBIs during a three-season stretch (1930–32). Only two other players, Jimmie Foxx with 507 and Hank Greenberg with 503, have surpassed 500 RBIs in any three seasons; their totals were not consecutive. (Babe Ruth had 498.)[38] Playing 14 complete seasons, Gehrig had 13 consecutive seasons with 100 or more RBIs (a major-league record shared with Foxx until eclipsed in 2010 by Alex Rodriguez). Gehrig had six seasons where he batted .350 or better (with a high of .379 in 1930), plus a seventh season at .349. Gehrig led the American League in runs scored four times, home runs three times, and RBIs five times. His 184 RBIs in 1931 remain the American League record as of 2019 and rank second all-time to Hack Wilson's 191 in 1930. On the single-season RBI list, Gehrig ranks second, fifth (175), and sixth (174), with four additional seasons of over 150 RBIs. He also holds the baseball record for most seasons with 400 total bases or more, accomplishing this feat five times in his career.[39] He batted fourth in the lineup behind Ruth, making intentionally walking Ruth counterproductive for opposing pitchers.

Unlike Ruth, Gehrig looked like he had the muscles of a power hitter. Ruth usually hit home runs as high fly balls, while Gehrig's were line drives.[21] During the 10 seasons (1925–1934) in which Gehrig and Ruth were teammates and next to each other in the batting order and played a majority of the games, Gehrig had more home runs than Ruth only once, in 1934 (which was Ruth's last year with the Yankees), when he hit 49 to Ruth's 22 (Ruth played 125 games that year). They tied at 46 in 1931. Ruth had 424 home runs compared to Gehrig's 347; however, Gehrig outpaced Ruth in RBIs, 1,436 to 1,316. Gehrig had a .343 batting average, compared to .338 for Ruth.[40]

Gehrig 1933 Goudey baseball card

In 1932 Gehrig became the first player in the 20th century to hit four home runs in a game, when he accomplished the feat on June 3 against the Philadelphia Athletics.[41] He narrowly missed getting a fifth home run when Athletics center fielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of another fly ball at the center-field fence. After the game, manager Joe McCarthy told him, "Well, Lou, nobody can take today away from you." On the same day, however, John McGraw announced his retirement after 30 years of managing the New York Giants. McGraw, not Gehrig, got the main headlines in the sports sections the next day.[42]

On August 17, 1933, Gehrig played in his 1,308th consecutive game against the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park, which broke the longest consecutive games played streak previously held by Everett Scott. Scott attended as a guest of the Browns.[43]

Gehrig lived with his parents until 1933, when he was 30 years old. His mother ruined all of Gehrig's romances until he met Eleanor Twitchell in 1932; they began dating the next year[21] and married in September. Eleanor Grace Twitchell (1904–1984) was the daughter of Chicago Parks Commissioner Frank Twitchell.[44] She helped Gehrig leave his mother's influence and hired Christy Walsh, Ruth's sports agent; Walsh helped Gehrig become the first athlete on Wheaties boxes.[21]

In a 1936 World Series cover story about Lou Gehrig and Carl Hubbell, Time proclaimed Gehrig "the game's No. 1 batsman", who "takes boyish pride in banging a baseball as far, and running around the bases as quickly, as possible".[45]

Also in 1936, at the urging of his wife, Gehrig agreed to hire Babe Ruth's agent, who, in turn, persuaded him to audition for the role of Tarzan, the Ape Man, after Johnny Weissmuller had vacated the iconic movie role. Gehrig only got as far, though, as posing for a widely distributed, and embarrassing, photo of himself in a leopard-spotted costume. When Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs spotted the outfit, he telegrammed Gehrig, "I want to congratulate you on being a swell first baseman."[46]

On June 1, 1925, Gehrig entered the game as a pinch hitter, substituting for shortstop Paul "Pee Wee" Wanninger. The next day, June 2, Yankee manager Miller Huggins started Gehrig in place of regular first baseman Wally Pipp. Pipp was in a slump, as was the team, so Huggins made several lineup changes in an attempt to boost their performance, replacing Pipp, Aaron Ward, and Wally Schang.[47] Fourteen years later, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games. According to Thomas Pipp, his father never regained his starting spot after he recovered from a headache. He broke the previous record of 1,307 consecutive games.

Seven of the American League's 1937 All-Star players, from left to right Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg: All seven were eventually elected to the Hall of Fame.

During the streak sportswriters in 1931 nicknamed Gehrig "the Iron Horse".[21] In a few instances, Gehrig managed to keep the streak intact through pinch-hitting appearances and fortuitous timing; in others, the streak continued despite injuries. For example:

• On April 23, 1933, a pitch by Washington Senators pitcher Earl Whitehill struck Gehrig in the head. Although almost knocked unconscious, Gehrig remained in the game.
• On June 14, 1933, Gehrig was ejected from a game, along with manager Joe McCarthy, but he had already been at bat.
• In a June 1934 exhibition game, Gehrig was hit by a pitch just above the right eye and was knocked unconscious. According to news reports, he was out for five minutes. Batting helmets were not commonly used until the 1940s. He left the game, but was in the lineup the next day.[48]
• On July 13, 1934, Gehrig suffered a "lumbago attack" and had to be assisted off the field. In the next day's away game, he was listed in the lineup as "shortstop", batting lead-off. In his first and only plate appearance, he singled and was promptly replaced by a pinch runner to rest his throbbing back, never taking the field. A&E's Biography speculated that this illness, which he also described as "a cold in his back", might have been the first symptom of his debilitating disease.[49]

In addition, X-rays taken late in his life disclosed that Gehrig had sustained several fractures during his playing career, although he remained in the lineup despite those previously undisclosed injuries.[50] However, the streak was helped when Yankees general manager Ed Barrow postponed a game as a rainout on a day when Gehrig was sick with the flu, though it was not raining.[51]

He was also persuaded, but not convinced, by his wife, Eleanor, to end the streak at 1,999 games by acting sick, as he already played through flu bouts before, and a nearly 700-game lead over the previous record.

Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games endured for 56 years until Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it on September 6, 1995; Ripken finished with 2,632 consecutive games.[52]

Although his performance in the second half of the 1938 season was slightly better than in the first half, Gehrig reported physical changes at the midway point. At the end of that season, he said, "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." Although his final 1938 statistics were above average (.295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits, .523 slugging percentage, 689 plate appearances with only 75 strikeouts, and 29 home runs), they were significantly down from his 1937 season, in which he batted .351 and slugged .643. In the 1938 World Series, he had four hits in 14 at-bats, all singles.[53]

When the Yankees began their 1939 spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, Gehrig clearly no longer possessed his once-formidable power. Even his baserunning was affected, and at one point he collapsed at Al Lang Field, then the Yankees' spring training park.[54] By the end of spring training, he had not hit a home run.[55] Throughout his career, Gehrig was considered an excellent base runner, but as the 1939 season got under way, his coordination and speed had deteriorated significantly.[56]

By the end of April, his statistics were the worst of his career, with one RBI and a .143 batting average. Fans and the press openly speculated on Gehrig's abrupt decline. James Kahn, a reporter who wrote often about Gehrig, said in one article:

I think there is something wrong with him. Physically wrong, I mean. I don't know what it is, but I am satisfied that it goes far beyond his ball-playing. I have seen ballplayers 'go' overnight, as Gehrig seems to have done. But they were simply washed up as ballplayers. It's something deeper than that in this case, though. I have watched him very closely and this is what I have seen: I have seen him time a ball perfectly, swing on it as hard as he can, meet it squarely – and drive a soft, looping fly over the infield. In other words, for some reason that I do not know, his old power isn't there ... He is meeting the ball, time after time, and it isn't going anywhere.[57]

He was indeed meeting the ball, with only one strikeout in 28 at-bats, but hitless in 5 of the first 8 games. However, Joe McCarthy found himself resisting pressure from Yankee management to switch Gehrig to a part-time role. Things came to a head when Gehrig struggled to make a routine put-out at first base. The pitcher, Johnny Murphy, had to wait for him to drag himself over to the bag so he could field the throw. Murphy said, "Nice play, Lou."[57] Lou's reply was very dismissive. "That was the simplest play you could ever make in baseball, and I knew then: There was something wrong with me".[58]

On April 30 Gehrig went hitless against the Washington Senators. He had just played his 2,130th consecutive major league game.[40]

On May 2, the next game after a day off, Gehrig approached McCarthy before the game in Detroit against the Tigers and said, "I'm benching myself, Joe", telling the Yankees' skipper that he was doing so "for the good of the team."[59] McCarthy acquiesced, putting Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren in at first base, and also said that whenever Gehrig felt he could play again, the position was his. Gehrig, as Yankee captain, himself took the lineup card out to the shocked umpires before the game, ending the 14-year streak. Before the game began, the Briggs Stadium announcer told the fans, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time Lou Gehrig's name will not appear on the Yankee lineup in 2,130 consecutive games." The Detroit Tigers' fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes.[53] Coincidentally, among those attending the game was Wally Pipp, whom Gehrig had replaced at first base 2,130 games previously. A wire-service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation's newspapers. He stayed with the Yankees as team captain for the rest of the season, but never played in a major-league game again.[53]

As Gehrig's debilitation became steadily worse, his wife Eleanor called the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her call was transferred to Charles William Mayo, who had been following Gehrig's career and his mysterious loss of strength. Mayo told Eleanor to bring Gehrig as soon as possible.[53]

Gehrig flew alone to Rochester from Chicago, where the Yankees were playing at the time, and arrived at the Mayo Clinic on June 13, 1939. After six days of extensive testing at the clinic, doctors confirmed the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) on June 19, 1939, which was Gehrig's 36th birthday.[60] The prognosis was grim: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking, and a life expectancy less than three years, although no impairment of mental functions would occur. Eleanor Gehrig was told that the cause of ALS was unknown, but it was painless, noncontagious, and cruel; the motor function of the central nervous system is destroyed, but the mind remains fully aware until the end.[61][62] Gehrig often wrote letters to Eleanor, and in one such note written shortly afterwards, said in part:

The bad news is lateral sclerosis, in our language chronic infantile paralysis. There isn't any cure ... there are very few of these cases. It is probably caused by some germ ... Never heard of transmitting it to mates ... There is a 50–50 chance of keeping me as I am. I may need a cane in 10 or 15 years. Playing is out of the question ...[63]

Following Gehrig's visit to the Mayo Clinic, he briefly rejoined the Yankees in Washington, DC. As his train pulled into Union Station, he was greeted by a group of Boy Scouts, happily waving and wishing him luck. Gehrig waved back, but he leaned forward to his companion, Rutherford "Rud" Rennie of the New York Herald Tribune, and said, "They're wishing me luck – and I'm dying."[15][64]

An article in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology[65] suggested the possibility that some ALS-related illnesses diagnosed in Gehrig and other athletes may have been catalyzed by repeated concussions and other brain trauma.[66][67][68] In 2012 Minnesota state legislators sought to unseal Gehrig's medical records, which are held by the Mayo Clinic, in an effort to determine a connection, if any, between his illness and the concussion-related trauma he received during his career, prior to the advent of batting helmets and other protective equipment. The effort was abandoned after several leading medical experts explained that a records review would have no value unless correlated with autopsy data. An autopsy was not performed on Gehrig's body, and his remains were cremated after his open-casket wake.[69]

Lou Gehrig's number 4 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1939.

The Yankee dynamic duo reunited – Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, shortly after Gehrig's retirement. Within a decade, a similar testimonial would honor Ruth, who died from cancer in 1948.

The doctors of the Mayo Clinic had released their ALS diagnosis to the public on June 19, 1939. Two days later, the New York Yankees announced Gehrig's retirement, with an immediate public push to honor Gehrig. The idea of an appreciation day reportedly began with Bill Hirsch, a friend of sports columnist Bill Corum. Corum spoke of the idea in his column, and other sportswriters picked up on the idea, promoting it far and wide in their respective periodicals. Someone suggested the appreciation day be held during the All-Star Game, but when Yankees president Ed Barrow got hold of the idea, he quickly shot down the All-Star Game suggestion. He did not want Gehrig to share the spotlight with any other all-star. Believing the idea was valid and the best thing to do, he wanted the appreciation day to be soon, and the Yankees proclaimed Tuesday, July 4, 1939, "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium. Between games of the Independence Day doubleheader against the Washington Senators, the poignant ceremonies were held on the diamond. In its coverage the following day, The New York Times said it was "perhaps as colorful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field [as] 61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell."[70] Dignitaries extolled the dying slugger and the members of the 1927 Yankees World Series team, known as "Murderer's Row", attended the ceremonies. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia called Gehrig "the greatest prototype of good sportsmanship and citizenship" and Postmaster General James Farley concluded his speech by predicting, "For generations to come, boys who play baseball will point with pride to your record."[70]

Yankees Manager Joe McCarthy, struggling to control his emotions, then spoke of Lou Gehrig, with whom he had a close, almost father-and-son–like bond. After describing Gehrig as "the finest example of a ballplayer, sportsman, and citizen that baseball has ever known", McCarthy could stand it no longer. Turning tearfully to Gehrig, the manager said, "Lou, what else can I say except that it was a sad day in the life of everybody who knew you when you came into my hotel room that day in Detroit and told me you were quitting as a ballplayer because you felt yourself a hindrance to the team. My God, man, you were never that."[71]

The Yankees retired Gehrig's uniform number "4", making him the first player in Major League Baseball history to be accorded that honor.[72] Gehrig was given many gifts, commemorative plaques, and trophies. Some came from VIPs; others came from the stadium's groundskeepers and janitorial staff. Footage of the ceremonies shows Gehrig being handed various gifts, and immediately setting them down on the ground, because he no longer had the arm strength to hold them.[15] The Yankees gave him a silver trophy with all of their signatures engraved on it. Inscribed on the front was a special poem they asked to be written by The New York Times writer John Kieran. The inscription on the trophy presented to Gehrig from his Yankees teammates:[73]

We've been to the wars together;
We took our foes as they came;
And always you were the leader,
And ever you played the game.

Idol of cheering millions,
Records are yours by sheaves;
Iron of frame they hailed you
Decked you with laurel leaves.

But higher than that we hold you,
We who have known you best;
Knowing the way you came through
Every human test.

Let this be a silent token
Of lasting Friendship's gleam,
And all that we've left unspoken;
Your Pals of the Yankees Team.

The trophy became one of Gehrig's most prized possessions.[74] It is currently on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

On July 4, 1939, Gehrig delivered what has been called "baseball's Gettysburg Address" to a sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium.[75][76][77] Having always avoided public attention, Gehrig did not want to speak, but the crowd chanted for him and he had memorized some sentences beforehand.[21] The following text is the official written version published on LouGehrig.com.[75] The parts that are different from the available snippets of recordings of the speech actually given are shown in brackets in footnotes and replaced here by the words actually spoken:

Fans, for the past two weeks, you've been reading about a bad break.[78] [pause] Today[79] I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the[80] earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

When you look around, wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today?[81] Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. – Thank you.

Only four sentences of the speech exist in recorded form; complete versions of the speech are assembled from newspaper accounts.[21]

For the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break. (pause) Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. (cut) When you look around, wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today? (cut) ... that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.[82]

The crowd stood and applauded for almost two minutes. Gehrig was visibly shaken as he stepped back from the microphone, and wiped the tears away from his face with his handkerchief.[74] His sometimes-estranged former teammate Babe Ruth came over and hugged him as a band played "I Love You Truly" and the crowd chanted, "We love you, Lou". The New York Times account the following day called it "one of the most touching scenes ever witnessed on a ball field", that made even hard-boiled reporters "swallow hard."[70]

At 10:10 p.m. on June 2, 1941, Gehrig died at his home at 5204 Delafield Avenue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, New York.[91][92]

Upon hearing the news, Babe Ruth and his wife Claire went to the Gehrig house to console Eleanor. Mayor La Guardia ordered flags in New York to be flown at half-staff, and major-league ballparks around the nation did likewise.[93]

Thousands viewed Gehrig's body at the Church of the Divine Paternity; Ruth cut in line ahead of everyone and wept in front of the casket.[21] Following the funeral across the street from his house at Christ Episcopal Church of Riverdale, Gehrig's remains were cremated on June 4 at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, which is 21 miles north of Yankee Stadium in suburban Westchester County. Gehrig's ashes were locked into a crypt in the stone monument marking his grave. [94] Gehrig and Ed Barrow are both interred in the same section of Kensico Cemetery, which is next door to Gate of Heaven Cemetery, where the graves of Babe Ruth and Billy Martin are both located in Section 25.[95]

The Gehrigs had no children during their eight-year marriage. Eleanor never remarried and was quoted as saying, "I had the best of it. I would not have traded two minutes of my life with that man for 40 years with another." She dedicated the remainder of her life to supporting ALS research. She died 43 years after Lou on her 80th birthday, March 6, 1984, and was interred with him in Kensico Cemetery.[26]

Today the ALS treatment and research center at his alma mater, Columbia University is named The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center. Located at NewYork–Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center, they have a clinical and research function directed at ALS and the related motor neuron diseases primary lateral sclerosis and progressive muscular atrophy.

The Yankees dedicated a monument to Gehrig in center field at Yankee Stadium on July 6, 1941; the shrine lauded him as "A man, a gentleman and a great ballplayer whose amazing record of 2,130 consecutive games should stand for all time." Gehrig's monument joined the one placed there in 1932 to Miller Huggins, which would eventually be followed by Babe Ruth's in 1949.[40]

Gehrig's birthplace in Manhattan at 1994 Second Avenue, near E. 103rd Street, is memorialized with a plaque marking the site, as is another early residence on 309 E. 94th Street, near Second Avenue. As of December 26, 2011, the first-mentioned plaque is not present due to ongoing construction. The second-mentioned plaque is present, but ascribes to his birthplace, not early residence. Gehrig died in a white house at 5204 Delafield Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The house still stands today on the east side of the Henry Hudson Parkway and is likewise marked by a plaque.[30]