The Luckiest Man
The Iron Horse was born 100 years ago this year.
Bygone baseball by C. Philip Francis
Part 1
Henry Louis Gehrig, better known to all as Lou, was born as Ludwig Heinrich on June 19, 1903 in the Upper East Side of New York City. His parents were Heinrich and Christina who had emigrated from Germany in the 19th century to find better lives. Lou had three siblings who died at a young age so all of the parental attention was directed only at Lou. He weighed 14 pounds at birth, and became a muscular and well-build young man although he had little confidence. While still young Lou’s father had taken him to a gym that helped developed his wide, powerful shoulders and massive thighs. The parents were ambitious, hard working, and wanted the best for their only child.
The future Hall of Famer played football and baseball in high school that brought interest from the major league scouts. He was about to enter Columbia University with an athletic scholarship when New York Giants manager, John McGraw, urged him to play professional baseball under the assumed name of “Henry Lewis” during the summer at the Hartford, Connecticut team of the Eastern League for additional playing experience. Although Lou was concerned that becoming professional would jeopardize his collegiate sports career, McGraw said, “Everybody does it.” Gehrig was found out, and banned from college athletics during his freshman year.
Gehrig was back with the Columbia University baseball team in1923 when he was signed by Yankee scout Paul Krichell. Lou returned to Hartford where he hit .304, and then was called up by the New York Yankees in September where he hit .423 in 26 at-bats. He was in only 10 games the next year hitting .500, and then came the left-handed first baseman’s break-in year of 1925 when he began his consecutive games streak. On June 1st Gehrig pinch hit for shortstop Pee Wee Wanninger, and then went on to play in the next 2129 games, but not always at first base and not all games were of nine or more innings.
The New York Yankees had won three straight pennants and one World Championship during the years 1921-1923 with Walter Clement “Wally” Pipp as their solid and dependable first baseman. Pipp had began his big league career with the Detroit Tigers in 1913, and after several good years in the minors he went to the Yankees where he played first base for the next 11 years. He was one of the best players on the New York team that included Bob Meusel, Jumping Joe Dugan, Waite Hoyt, and Herb Pennock.
In his first two years with the Yankees Gehrig was almost sent to the St. Louis Browns after urging manager Miller Huggins to play him or trade him. The 21 year-old infielder could not break into the strong Yankee lineup, but was sent into the outfield for a few games where he did not play well and was soon back on the bench.
Records did not mean too much at that time, yet Yankee shortstop Everett Scott did have the consecutive games played record that ended his “unbeatable” record of 1,307 in June of 1925 when Pee Wee took over at shortstop. Ironically it was the same year that Gehrig began his long also “unbeatable” streak. The day after Lou was sent in to hit for Wanninger, first sacker Pipp asked for a day off. After Pipp told manager Huggins that he had a headache, the skipper replied, “Take an aspirin, take the day off, and we’ll let the new kid Gehrig play.” Pipp later joked that Yankees sent him home for a 14-year vacation.
The headache incident has been altered as have most baseball anecdotes. For instance a common reason for the headache is that Pipp was beamed, but that occurred a month later when hit by a rookie pitcher in batting practice. Some believe and said that the team was in a slump, and Pipp just wanted a day off and go to the horse track. Whatever the case, Lou took the best of the opportunity. He had two singles and a double that day, and never looked back. Wally Pipp played little during the rest of the season, and then traded to the Cincinnati Reds the following winter where he played the next three years before retiring from the game. He died in 1965 in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the age of 72.
Lou Gehrig became one of the greatest first basemen ever to play for the New York Yankees, and was in every Yankees game from June 1925 through May 2, 1939 when he benched himself before the game with the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium. That record stayed intact until broken by Cal Ripken, Jr. sixty years later.
Gehrig was called Galluping Lou, Columbia Lou, and The Iron Horse, an American icon whose early death made him an American legend. He played his entire major league career in the New York City media area, and was often lost in the headlines given to Babe Ruth and later Joe DiMaggio. When asked about playing in their shadows by writer Frederick G. Lieb, Lou responded, “It’s a pretty big shadow. It gives me a lot of room to spread myself.”
And spread out he did. He ended his career with a batting average of .340, 15th all-time highest; his 184 RBI’s in 1931 is the second highest total in American League history; Lou won the Triple Crown (batting average, home runs, RBIs) in 1934, and won the Most Valuable Player award in both 1927 and 1936. Gehrig became the first American Leaguer to hit four home runs in game with the Philadelphia A’s on June 3, 1932, and almost hit a fifth but a great catch by Al Simmons kept the ball from leaving the park.
Next: Part 2 of “The Luckiest Man”.
The Luckiest Man
“…I may have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
-Lou Gehrig
Bygone baseball by C. Philip Francis
Part 2
“He never had much attention,” said baseball executive, Gabe Paul, about Lou Gehrig, “He didn’t want it.” In the first 12 years of his 17-year career Gehrig played in the shadows of the flamboyant and colorful Babe Ruth. The two famous Yankee sluggers had not been good friends for several years, and during Ruth’s last season with New York in 1934 Lou blossomed using his potent bat for a .363 average and hit 49 home runs. He became the highest paid player in the game - $30,000 a year.
The Yankees finished second place to the Detroit Tigers in both 1934 and ’35, and then again won the World Series the next four years. Lou hit .361 in ten World Series along with ten home runs. And, of course, throughout that time Gehrig continued to play each day while fighting colds, fevers, lumbago, a fractured toe, and a broken thumb.
Gehrig hit .351 in 1937, and when he fell to a .295 average the following year, the first time he was under .300, it was obvious to the team that Lou was in trouble. When manager Joe McCarthy was asked if he was going to bench Gehrig, the answer was, “That’s Lou decision.” Lou was struggling. During the first eight games of the season Gehrig was batting a feeble .143, and when a ball was hit back to Yankee pitcher Johnny Murphy, Lou had a hard time getting back to the bag to take a routine throw.
On May 2, 1939 the Yankees were playing the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium. Before the game Lou talked to a teammate, and said, “I’m not feeling well. I may not play today.” He then went to manager McCarthy and asked to be removed from the lineup. Babe Dahlgren took over first base as the stadium announcer told the crowd, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Lou Gehrig’s consecutive streak of 2130 games played as ended.”
Lou went to the Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota for test, and on June 19th, his 36th birthday, he heard the results. The doctors diagnosed Gehrig as having a very rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, an unknown and incurable affliction that someday would be better known as – The Lou Gehrig Disease.
After New York writer, Paul Gallico, suggested that the unfortunate New York star be honored on July 4, 1939 at Yankee Stadium, over 62,000 baseball fans filled the park to say their last good-byes to a great ballplayer. Lou was there in his Number 4 Yankee uniform, and was expected to say something to the crowd. As the people stood up to recognize and acclaim their baseball hero Gehrig moved toward the microphone and began to speak. He had not written down anything, but his immortal words that came from the heart became the baseball’s Gettysburg Address.
“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years, and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? (Note: New York Yankees owner.) 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 may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
Lou Gehrig’s testimonial has been called the “most emotional event in baseball history.” After the speech Babe Ruth walked up and threw his arm across Lou’s shoulders, and spoke in his ear – the first words they have shared in five years.
The dying Yankee stayed with his team sitting on the bench in uniform, rooting for his teammates, and taking the lineup out to the umpires before the game hoping someday he could get back in shape and return to the field. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia made Lou the city’s parole commissioner where he worked hard until the spring of 1941 when he did not have enough strength to get to his office. Soon he had trouble getting out of bed. On June 2, 1941 at 10:00 in the morning, and with his dog, Yankee, wife Eleanor and his parents by his bedside Lou died at the age of 37, exactly the same date when he took over Wally Pipp’s first base job 16 years before.
Lou was immediately inducted into the Hall of Fame after the voters waived the five- year waiting period, and became the first player to have his uniform number retired. Lou was cremated, and his ashes were buried at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Note: Gehrig’s life is portrayed in a 1942 film Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper as the Iron Horse, Teresa Wright as Eleanor, and Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey as themselves.
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