Lou Gehrig's Baseball Career

Lou Gehrig

When the name Lou Gehrig is heard, three things come to mind: baseball, record setting, and a crippling disease. Though his baseball career took place in the 1920s and 30s, Gehrig is still revered as a phenomenal player today. One of his records stood until very recently. Unfortunately, his livelihood in baseball came to a premature end when he encountered a “bad break” that was foreshadowing to a terrible nerve condition. Before that however, he lead an interesting life. Born Henry Louis Gehrig to German immigrant parents in June of 1903, Gehrig was the only one of their children to survive infancy. His mother wanted him to be well educated and have a good job when he grew up. “Throughout eight years of grade school,
Lou didn’t miss a single day (Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man).” Gehrig had other ideas. He absolutely adored sports and played in the morning before school. He played soccer, football, and of course baseball. During high school Gehrig was a star on his school’s baseball team. Gehrig attended Columbia University studying in engineering and continuing his interest in sports. He was on the football and baseball teams as a fullback and pitcher, respectively. He once struck out seventeen batters in a row during a game at Columbia. However his batting was what attracted the New York Yankees, who in April of 1923 signed Gehrig onto the team. Thus began his impressive baseball career. The sport of the 1920s and 30s was undoubtedly baseball and it would later become the national pastime. The advent of radio and newspaper coverage of the sport played a huge role in making it so. Many homes had a radio and everyone could go to a place where one was playing. This made game reports immediate and accessible, making baseball extremely popular with national audiences. Stadiums also contributed to baseballs popularity. During particularly important games any given stadium would have been packed with adoring fans, screaming for their favorite player or team. This is when the homerun became a key part of the sport as well. Babe Ruth made it popular with his hard hitting swings. Lou Gehrig, however, held a record in this respect. Gehrig held the record for most homeruns hit by any first baseman at four hundred ninety-three.
He also became the first player to hit four homeruns in a single game. Yet another of his records was for the most grand slams. A grand slam is when all of the bases are loaded, have a player on them, and a homerun is hit making the score of the play four. Gehrig hit an astounding twenty-three of these, a record that still stands today. Perhaps most impressive of all was his record for consecutive games played in. He played in two-thousand one-hundred thirty games in a row in spite of more than a dozen hand fractures, intense back pain, and other injuries and ailments, thus earning his nickname, “The Iron Horse.” The only other person ever to break this particular record was Cal Ripken with two-thousand six-hundred thirty-two consecutive games. Gehrig’s record setting days came to an abrupt end,
however. 1938 saw Gehrig in a below average season.
He missed shots and his coordination slowed. Most thought it was due to his aging or because he pushed himself so hard. But, in 1939 after Gehrig had removed himself from the Yankee lineup, he thought that there was another problem. Finding easy tasks suddenly difficult and that he was always tired, he went to the Mayo Clinic and as diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This incurable disease directly affected the nervous system, gradually severing nerves from muscles and making them useless. This forced Gehrig to retire from his beloved sport and on the Fourth of July in 1939, Yankee Stadium was packed with a solemn crowd. That day a ceremony honoring Gehrig, who attended, was held. His disease had caused him to lose a substantial amount of weight and his old uniform hung loosely on him, but he delivered an incredibly moving and tear-inducing speech. In it, Gehrig thanked his teammates, wife, and parents, saying that he was, “The luckiest man on the face of the earth.” After his speech was finished, the crowd cheered and Babe Ruth gave him a hug. Shortly after his retirement, Gehrig was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Though the waiting period for induction was five years, this was waived because of Gehrig’s condition. As well as that, his jersey was retired by the Yankees. This made him the first athlete to ever have this done, and it started a tradition that remains
today. With his disease causing a rapid decline in his health, Gehrig stayed at home for some months until he died in his sleep on June 2, 1941 at the age of thirty-seven. He is buried in New York City, his home, next to his wife and a small distance away from Babe Ruth. His legacy lives on today, however. Lou Gehrig left behind a sport he had changed forever. He set several long standing records and an unbroken one. He helped to make baseball the great American pastime along with his team. Even the disease that killed him is now better known simply as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. One thing is for sure, he remains in the hearts of all baseball fans today.

Bibliography
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Eig, J. (2005). Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Harris, W. H., & Levey, J. S. (1975). Lou Gehrig. New York: Columbia University Press.
Johnson, R. T. (2012). Baseballs Golden Age: Part One. Retrieved from The History Rat: http://historyrat.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/baseballs-golden-age-which-one-is-it/
Lou Gehrig. (2013). Retrieved from Lou Gehrig: http://www.lougehrig.com
Lou Gehrig Bio. (2013). Retrieved from The Biography Website: http://www.biography.com/people/lou-gehrig-9308266
Patay, M. (n.d.). Lou Gehrig- Biography. Retrieved from iMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0311801/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm