5/1/2007

American Masters – Lou Gehrig
The luckiest man on earth
By Don Klein

Lou Gehrig lived and played baseball in those halcyon pre-steroid years between the two world wars like no one else when natural skills mattered the most. He was an athletic giant not just in physical size, he was over 200 pounds and stood at six feet, but also on the playing field.

Gehrig was the greatest first baseman ever and a key component in the New York Yankee legend and in baseball history. His record 2,130 consecutive games played (since superseded by Cal Ripken six decades later) perfectly reflected his steady, dependable character. Because he was also handsome, a native New Yorker, and eventually a tragic figure, he became as glamorous as a sports hero could be.

His reputation is so immense he received more votes than any other baseball player from fans in 1999 when they selected the Major League Baseball's All Century Team. This, despite the fact that Gehrig died more than a half century before.

Yet today he is best known to some people as having given his name to one of the most dreaded diseases known. He died in 1941 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known today as "Lou Gehrig's disease."

Nicknamed the "Iron Horse" for having played without missing a game in over 14 years, he was more than a man of extreme staying power. His slugging records still amaze the sports world. His lifetime batting average was .340, he got on base almost every other time he came to the plate, his slugging percentage was 632, he hit 23 grand slams in his career more than any other player in history, he hit 73 three-run homers and 166 two-run blasts.

He is the unmatched clutch hitter with the highest average RBI per homer of any player with more than 300 career homers. He was voted the most valuable player in the American League twice (in 1927 and 1936) and in 1934 won the triple crown with a .363 batting average, 49 home runs and 165 runs batted in.

Sportswriter Jim Murray said of Gehrig, "He was a Gibraltar in cleats." Gehrig was both normal and mythical, a dedicated athlete, an attentive son and husband, an honest man and an American master.

Gehrig was born in New York on June 19, 1903, the son of poor German immigrants, his mother a cook and his epileptic father a janitor when he worked but was mostly unemployed.  He was born Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig, but all his friends called him Lou. He grew up on New York streets loving baseball but his parents wanted more for him.

They considered baseball a schoolyard game and wanted young Lou to go to college and become an architect, emulating his successful uncle in Germany. Fate stepped in the way because of his natural athletic prowess. At 17 while playing with his high school team in Cubs Field, Chicago, (later known as Wrigley Field) he hit a grand slam home run completely out of the park. It was an unheard of accomplishment for a high school player.

He later won a scholarship at Columbia University but was not allowed to play baseball because he was once paid as a semi-pro baseball player which disqualified him from undergraduate baseball under the then collegiate rules. Instead he became Columbia's fullback. His baseball skills however could not be minimized and in his sophomore year he joined the baseball team and set multiple school records.

Most notable was his seven home runs, .444 batting average and .937 slugging average. Also a pitcher, he still holds the Columbia record for strikeouts in a game, fanning 17 Williams's batters in a game he lost. It is rumored that the Columbia coach, a former major leaguer, was paid $500 by the Yankees to convince the youngster to sign with them. Eventually he signed with the team for $1,500 and they sent him to the minor leagues for conditioning.

Gehrig was always a prodigious hitter and set many records at the school, but the depiction in "The Pride of the Yankees" film in which Gehrig allegedly hit a ball through the window of the athletic office in Low Library never happened. No one ever did.

Gehrig played two seasons with Hartford of the Eastern League and debuted in the majors four days short of his 20th birthday. He had brief but successful stints with the Yankees in 1923 and 1924. He started his famous streak on May 31, 1925, pinch hitting for Pee Wee Wanninger, a shortstop.

The next day when regular first baseman Wally Pipp sat out a game with a headache, Gehrig started in his place. The team was in seventh place at the time and Babe Ruth was sick, so some experimentation was in order. As a rookie Gehrig's position on the team was tenuous. He was removed for pinch hitters three times that month, and did not start on July 5, although he came into the game later. Gehrig had a good season, hitting .295 with 20 HR and 68 RBI in 126 games.

But it was in 1927, when he was moved to the cleanup spot in the lineup that became known as Murderer's Row, that Gehrig put up big numbers for the first time. He won the MVP award and led the American League with a phenomenal 175 RBI, 52 doubles, and 447 total bases. He finished behind Ruth with 47 HR, 149 runs, a 765 slugging average, and 109 walks. His .373 batting average also ranked second.

Throughout his amazing career Gehrig was overshadowed. At first it was Babe Ruth, the idol of the sports world in the roaring twenties, the epitome of the Golden Era colossus, while Gehrig was the steady and dependable role player on the team. When Ruth eventually left, Gehrig was again pushed into the background. Now near the twilight of his career he was overshadowed by a new star, Joe DiMaggio.

With a new slugger in the lineup, the Yankees started a four-year spree that ended in successive world championships, but in the midst of this triumph a shadow descended on the team. In 1938 Gehrig's batting average dropped below 300 for the first time since his rookie season. By 1939 he was not himself, he could hardly stand and he missed plays on the field. Something was seriously wrong.

On May 2 he went to manager Joe McCarthy and did what the team leader said he would never do, Gehrig took himself out of the lineup. By now he was hitting .143 and was uncommonly clumsy. He never played again but in his capacity as team captain he continued to carry the lineup to the umpires before the game. Eventually even that proved too much for him.

He was diagnosed with ALS, the disease which bears his name.  On July 4, 1939 Yankee Stadium was decked out with flags to honor Gehrig. Perhaps in one of the most famous ceremonies in baseball history, Gehrig stepped up to the microphone and with great emotion announced the most unforgettable words ever heard in baseball, "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He wiped tears from his eyes as did the majority of the 70,000 fans in the stands.

With Lou Gehrig Day over, the ex-baseball star went to work for New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as the city's parole commissioner where he counseled youngsters in trouble. Twenty-three months later, on June 2, 1941, his body gave in to the crippling disease and he died.

Gehrig's uniform number "4" was the first ever to be retired by any baseball team. He was the youngest player ever to be installed into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the five-year required waiting period waived in his honor.

If you go to historic Yankee Stadium today there is a shrine to the team's greats in centerfield. Lou Gehrig's monument stands there next to Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and others, as a reminder how ordinary humans can attain immortality through dedication and unusual skill.

For information on ALS call ALS Association DC/MD/VA Chapter, Christine Kirkley at 301-978-9855, Ext. 205 or call local volunteers Anita or Ken at 410-208-9674.

Lou Gehrig’s speech

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been to ballparks for 17 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? 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 the 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 mother who work all their lives so that 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.”

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