Tag: ALS

July 4th in baseball history – The luckiest man

JULY 4, 1939 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A tired, frail, shadow of his former self told 61,808 people in Yankee stadium on the Fourth of July in 1939, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” New York Yankee first-baseman Lou Gehrig was very sick.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qswig8dcEAY

He stopped playing baseball. He was getting weaker by the day and would be gone in less than two years.

The suddenness of Gehrig’s decline was shocking. He was known as the “Iron Horse.” He played every single game for 14 years. When Babe Ruth set the single season home run record in 1927 with 60 home runs, Gehrig hit 47 – more than anyone, other than Ruth, had ever hit up to that time.

Gehrig had 29 home runs, 114 runs batted in and 115 runs scored in his last full season – 1938. It was not his best year, but still quite good. The only stat that appeared to show decline was batting average. He hit .295. He hadn’t hit under .300 in twelve seasons and hit .351 in 1937, .354 the year before that.

Clearly, Gehrig had lost a step, he was 35 years old, so slowing down a bit was not unexpected. But Gehrig’s decline was clear in spring training 1939. His power had faded. He was hitting just .143 with no extra base hits when he took himself out of the lineup after eight games of the regular season. He never got back in.

A few weeks after asking out of the lineup Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with a rare, crippling, fatal disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The sickness would become known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Contributing sources:
Lou Gehrig web site
Baseball-Almanac (Gehrig)

JUNE 1 Gehrig begins journey

JUNE 1, 1925 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – On this date in 1925 twenty-one year old Lou Gehrig pinched hit for New York Yankee shortstop Paul Wanninger. It was the start of something special. The Iron Horse begins his journey. Gehrig would play in every single game for the next 14 years. He would surpass Everett Scott‘s consecutive game record of 1,307, and set his own of 2,130 consecutive games played.

The oft-repeated story is that Gehrig’s streak began when New York Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp asked for a day off because of a headache. Another story is Yankee manager Miller Huggins didn’t start Pipp and several other regulars that day to shake up a slumping lineup. Either story may be true. Gehrig did start at first in place of Pipp on June 2nd – the second day of his streak.

Interestingly, the guy Gehrig pinch hit for on June 1st to start his streak, Paul Wanninger, several years earlier had replaced former consecutive game record holder Everett Scott in the Yankee lineup.

Gehrig’s consecutive game streak ended sadly in 1939. He was forced out of the lineup by a rare disease that sapped the Iron Horse of his strength. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is now more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. His seemingly unbreakable record would stand for 56 years. It was broken by Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles in 1995. But it was on this date in 1925 that the Iron Horse began his journey.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
June 1, 1925
ESPN on Gehrig
Wally Pipp

 

A story from MAY 2 in baseball history – Gehrig not in lineup!

TODAYinBASEBALL TAKES US TO DETROIT, MICHIGAN, MAY 2, 1939. The New York Yankees crushed the Detroit Tigers 22 to 2. But the game was more noteworthy for who didn’t play. Shocker! Lou Gehrig not in lineup. The Iron horse first baseman voluntarily decided for the good of the team he couldn’t play. He had played every single game for 14 years – 2,130 games! Gehrig’s record of most consecutive games played would stand until Cal Ripken broke it in 1995.

Something really had to be wrong for Gehrig to keep himself out of the lineup on May 2, 1939. Something was.

Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig was born in New York City in 1903. His name was Americanized to Henry Louis Gehrig. He went to Columbia University in New York on a football scholarship, but also played baseball. Gehrig left Columbia to sign with the Yankees.

As legend has it, early in his career, the Yankees offered Gehrig to the Boston Red Sox for a starting pitcher as kind of re-payment for the Babe Ruth deal a few years earlier. The Red Sox didn’t want Gehrig.

Something really had to be wrong for Gehrig to keep himself out of the lineup on May 2, 1939. It was a shocker, Lou Gehrig not in the lineup. The problem was Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which later became known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, had attacked his body. He was too weak to play baseball. His health deteriorated shockingly fast. Henry Louis Gehrig died just two years later.

Contributing sources:
ALS.org
Lou Gehrig.com