Lou Gehrig

First basemanBorn: June 19, 1903
New York, New YorkDied: June 2, 1941 (aged 37)
Riverdale, BronxBatted: Left Threw: Left
MLB debut
June 15, 1923 for the New York YankeesLast MLB appearance
April 30, 1939 for the New York YankeesCareer statistics
Batting average
.340
Home runs
493
Hits
2,721
Runs batted in
1,995Teams
• New York Yankees (1923–1939) Career highlights and awards
• 7x All-Star selection (1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939)
• 6x World Series champion (1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938)
• 2x AL MVP (1927, 1936)
• New York Yankees #4 retired
• Other accomplishments Member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction 1939Vote Unanimous

Henry Louis “Lou” Gehrig (June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941), born Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig,[1] was an American baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s, chiefly remembered for his prowess as a hitter and the longevity of his consecutive games played record, and the pathos of his tearful farewell from baseball at age 36, when he was stricken with a fatal disease. Popularly called “The Iron Horse” for his durability, Gehrig set several Major League records.[1] His record for most career grand slams (23) still stands as of 2009.[2] In 1969, Gehrig was voted the greatest first baseman of all time by the Baseball Writers’ Association.[3] Gehrig was the leading vote-getter on the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, chosen by fans in 1999.[4]

A native of New York City, he played for the New York Yankees until his career was cut short by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now commonly referred to in the United States as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.[5] Over a 15-season span between 1925 and 1939, he played in 2,130 consecutive games. The streak ended when Gehrig became disabled with the fatal neuromuscular disease that claimed his life two years later. His streak, long believed to be one of baseball’s few unbreakable records[6], stood for 56 years until finally broken by Cal Ripken, Jr., of the Baltimore Orioles on September 6, 1995.

Gehrig accumulated 1,995 runs batted in (RBI) in seventeen seasons with a lifetime batting average of .340, a lifetime on-base percentage of .447, and a lifetime slugging percentage of .632. Three of the top six RBI seasons in baseball history belong to Gehrig. He was selected to each of the first seven All-Star games (though he did not play in the 1939 game, as he retired one week before it was held)[7]), and he won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award in 1927 and 1936. He was also a Triple Crown winner in 1934, leading the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBIs.[8]

Early life

Gehrig was born in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, weighing almost 14 pounds (6.4 kg) at birth, the son of poor German immigrants Heinrich Gehrig and Christina Fack.[8] His father was a sheet metal worker by trade, but frequently unemployed due to ill health, so his mother was the breadwinner and disciplinarian.[9] Both parents considered baseball to be a schoolyard game; his domineering mother steered young Lou toward a career in business.[9]

Lou Gehrig went to PS 132 in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan and then to Commerce High School, graduating in 1921.[10][11] Gehrig then studied at Columbia University for two years, although he did not graduate.[12] While attending Columbia, he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.[13] Initially, Gehrig could not play intercollegiate baseball for the Columbia Lions because he had played baseball for a summer professional league during his freshman year.[13] At the time, he was unaware that doing so jeopardized his eligibility to play any collegiate sport. Gehrig was ruled eligible to play on the Lions’ football team and was a standout fullback. He later gained baseball eligibility and joined the Lions on that squad as well.
Gehrig first garnered national attention for his baseball ability while playing in a game at Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field) on June 26, 1920. Gehrig’s New York School of Commerce team was playing a team from Chicago’s Lane Tech High School, in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 spectators.[14] With his team winning 8-6 in the top of the ninth inning, Gehrig hit a grand slam completely out of the Major League ballpark, an unheard-of feat for a 17-year old high school boy.[14][15]

Gehrig on the Columbia University baseball team
On April 18, 1923, the same day that Yankee Stadium opened for the first time and Babe Ruth inaugurated the new stadium with a home run, Columbia pitcher Gehrig struck out seventeen Williams batters for a team record. However, Columbia lost the game. Only a handful of collegians were at South Field that day, but more significant was the presence of Yankee scout Paul Krichell, who had been trailing Gehrig for some time. It was not Gehrig’s pitching that particularly impressed him. Instead, it was Gehrig’s powerful left-handed hitting. During the time Krichell had been observing the young Columbia ballplayer, Gehrig had hit some of the longest home runs ever seen on various Eastern campuses, including a 450-foot (137 m) home run on April 28 at Columbia’s South Field which landed at 116th Street and Broadway.[16] Within two months, Gehrig had signed a Yankee contract.[13]

Major League Baseball career

Gehrig joined the New York Yankees midway through the 1923 season and made his debut on June 15, 1923, as a pinch hitter. 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 437 times for a respectable .295 batting average with 20 home runs and 68 runs batted in (RBIs).[17]

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in exhibition game at West Point, NY (May 6, 1927)
The twenty-three year old Yankee first baseman’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.[17] In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and 4 RBIs. The Cardinals won a seven-game series, winning four games to three.[18]

In 1927, Gehrig put up one of the greatest seasons by any batter in history. That year, he hit .373, with 218 hits: 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, a then-record 175 runs batted in (surpassing teammate Babe Ruth’s 171 six years earlier), and a .765 slugging percentage.[17] His 117 extra-base hits that season are second all-time to Babe Ruth’s 119 extra base hits in 1921[17] and his 447 total bases are third all-time to Babe Ruth’s 457 total bases in 1921 and Rogers Hornsby’s 450 in 1922.[17] Gehrig’s great season helped the 1927 Yankees to a 110-44 record, the AL pennant, and a four-game sweep over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series. Although the AL recognized his season by naming him league MVP, his season was 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.[19]

Despite playing in the shadow of the larger-than-life 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 non-consecutive. (Babe Ruth had 498.)[20] Playing fourteen complete seasons, Gehrig had thirteen consecutive seasons with 100 or better RBIs (a Major League record he shares with Jimmie Foxx). Gehrig had six seasons where he batted .350 or better (with a high of .379 in 1930), plus a seventh season at .349. He had eight seasons with 150 or more RBIs, 11 seasons with over 100 walks, eight seasons with 200 or more hits, and five seasons with more than 40 home runs.[21] Gehrig led the American League in runs scored four times, home runs three times, and RBIs five times. His 184 RBIs in 1931 is still an American League record as of 2009 and second all-time to Hack Wilson’s 191 RBIs in 1930. On the single-season RBI list, Gehrig ranks second, fifth (175) and sixth (174), with four additional seasons over 150 RBI. He also holds the baseball record for most seasons with 400 total bases or more, accomplishing this feat five times in his career.[21]
During the ten seasons (1925-1934) in which Gehrig and Ruth were both Yankees and played a majority of the games, Gehrig had more home runs than Ruth only once, in 1934, when he hit 49 compared 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 RBI, 1,436 to 1,316. Gehrig had a .343 batting average, compared to .338 for Ruth.[22]

Gehrig and Carl Hubbell on 1936 Time Magazine cover
In 1932, Gehrig became the first player of the 20th century to hit four home runs in a single game, accomplishing the feat on June 3 against the Philadelphia Athletics.[23] He narrowly missed getting a fifth home run in the game when Athletics center fielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of another Gehrig-hit fly ball at the centerfield fence. After the game, Manager Joe McCarthy told him, “Well, Lou, nobody can take today away from you.” However, on that same day, John McGraw chose to announce 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.[24] The following year, in September 1933, Gehrig married Eleanor Twitchell, the daughter of Chicago Parks Commissioner Frank Twitchell.[17]
In a 1936 World Series cover story about Lou Gehrig and Carl Hubbell, Time magazine 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”.[25]
2,130 consecutive games

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 were the Yankees as a team, so Huggins made several lineup changes to boost their performance. Fourteen years later, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games. 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, an errant pitch by Washington Senators hurler struck Gehrig in the head. Although almost knocked unconscious, Gehrig recovered and 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, so he got credit for playing the game.
• 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.[26]
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.[27] Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games played stood until September 6, 1995, when Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it.[28]