The Iron Horse

A while ago there was a pretty hot debate about Roberts resting players as we go down the stretch still chasing the Giants. And it got me thinking about today’s players and how much time during the season they get off. Rarely do you see a player on the field for all 162 games. It is even rarer to see a player play all of the regular season games and then play all the games in the playoffs. Players today are in better shape, eat better, have more comfortable traveling conditions and stay in the best hotels when they are on the road. They have great medical staffs and trainers to see to their aches and pains. Team doctors are right there to help with any major injuries and illnesses. The Dodgers this season have been riddled with injuries to both key players and subs. But they still are in the race and have the second-best record in the majors.

I have always been impressed though by players who reached a substantial number of games played while never missing a beat even when injured. And to me, the shining example of that kind of player is the legendary Lou Gehrig. I read a lot about Gehrig when I was a youngster. Almost every school I went to had his biography in the library. But they did not have a picture of him, and it wasn’t until I read an article about him in the Sporting News, that I even knew what he looked like.

Henry Louis Gehrig. Born in Yorkville, Manhattan, New York City on June 19, 1903. His birth name was Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig. His parents, Heinrich and Christina Gehrig were first-generation immigrants from Germany. Lou was a big baby, some stories say he was almost 14 pounds at birth. He had no siblings who lived to adulthood. His sister Anna died in 1902 when she was only 3 months old. His other sister, Sophie, contracted measles and diphtheria and passed away in 1906 when she was less than 2 years old. There was also another brother who died almost immediately after his birth and was never named.

His father was a metal worker, but he was rarely employed because he drank a lot and also would get ill quite often, He also did not have a very good attendance record when he did work. He would sometimes disappear for a few days and then return with no explanation. So, Lou’s mom, Christina was the main breadwinner and disciplinarian. She was also very protective of her only surviving child.

When Gehrig was five, his family moved from Yorkville to Washington Heights. The apartment they lived in was within shouting distance of Hilltop Park, home of the New York Highlanders of the American League, and not very far from there was the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants of the National League. Growing up so near to these parks gave Lou an early appetite and appreciation for the game. He began playing in pickup games, and soon discovered he was better than most of the other boys. He soon became one of the best sandlot players in the city.

His favorite team in those days was the Giants. Lou would attend games there whenever he could save up the 25 cents it cost to sit in the left-field bleachers at the Polo Grounds. Unfortunately, his parents did not share his enthusiasm for the game. Being immigrants, they thought it was nothing more than a schoolyard game. They were poor and wanted Lou to become a businessman someday. Making his own way in the world.

Lou followed his mother’s wishes for a time. He devoted himself to his studies and was a very good student during elementary school. But he still found time to play the game in the summer and on weekends during his childhood. In 1917 Lou enrolled at Commerce High School in Manhattan. There he starred in both football and baseball.

He first gained national attention when the City of Chicago sponsored a game between the New York City Champs, Gehrig’s Commerce High School, and the Chicago Champs, Lane Tech High School. The game was played on June 26, 1920, in front of 10,000 fans at Cubs Park, which 6 years later would be renamed Wrigley Field.

In the top of the 9th inning, Commerce led 8-6 and Gehrig came to the plate with the bases loaded. A hit would put the game out of reach, but Gehrig did that and more, he hit a ball over the right-field fence and out of sight. As reported the next day in the Tribune, ” Gehrig’s blow would have made any big leaguer proud, yet it was walloped by a boy who has not yet started to shave”.

The New York Daily News went a step farther saying that the star of the inter-city game was Babe Gehrig. Probably the first time the sportswriters compared him to Ruth, and definitely not the last. During his high school years, his mother worked as a maid for the Sigma Nu Theta fraternity house at Columbia University. Lou would often go to the fraternity house to help serve dinner and wash dishes afterward. Lou also would find work in butcher shops and grocery stores to help supplement the family income. But despite his best efforts, the Gehrig’s were still very poor. And his father’s inconsistent work habits contributed greatly to that poverty.

In January of 1921, Gehrig graduated from high school and entered Columbia University on a football scholarship. Baseball at that level was not very well organized and scouts rarely attended games. But he was well known in the city and he was approached by Arthur Irwin, a scout for the Giants, and told he could get him a workout before he ever put on a football uniform.

The scout told him that John McGraw had seen him play and would like to offer him a contract. In fact, McGraw had never seen him play and surely was not ready to give him a contract. But in June of 1921, Lou showed up at the Polo Grounds for the workout, and after hitting 6 consecutive HR’s in batting practice, McGraw’s interest was peaked. But when the first ball hit to him at first base went between his legs, McGraw told the scout to get him out of here. I already have enough lousy players here without another showing up. Needless to say, Lou was disappointed. But not deterred,

Irwin then told him he could get him a contract to play for the Hartford Senators of the Class A Eastern League. Lou played a dozen games there under the names of Lefty Gehrig and Lou Lewis. Irwin had assured him that playing there would not affect his college eligibility. A lie. He should have been wondering when he was asked to play under a couple of false identities.

When Columbia’s coach discovered that Lou Lewis was actually Lou Gehrig, he did something very smart. He went to his biggest rivals, Cornell, Dartmouth, Amherst, and Middlebury and talked to each of their coaches, and asked for special dispensation for Lou’s innocent mistake. All agreed and he was suspended for a year instead of being expelled.

In 1923, Gehrig finally took the field for Columbia in his sophomore year. He set the college baseball world on fire. In a 19 game season, he set the school record for the highest batting average, 444. highest slugging pct, 937 and most home runs, 7. His power became the stuff of legend. One of his teammates recounted a ball he hit against Cornell. Cornell had a high right-field fence, behind the fence was a road and beyond that a forest, Gehrig lifted a ball over the fence and it landed in the forest. The coach and his teammate just looked at each other in wonder.

Gehrig also pitched for the team and was their top pitcher with a 6-4 record. On the day Yankee Stadium opened he pitched a game against Williams College and struck out 17 batters. It is still the school record. On April 26, 1923, a Yankee scout named Paul Krichell was on a train from New York to New Brunswick NJ to watch a game between Rutgers, and Columbia. While on the train he struck up a conversation with Andy Coakley, Columbia’s coach who told him about his sophomore pitcher who was also a pretty good hitter. Gehrig hit 2 HR’s that day in 3 at-bats.

Krichell was so impressed he called Yankee GM, Ed Barrow and told him he had found another Babe Ruth. The next day, Gehrig hit another prodigious homer and pitched a complete game. Krichell did not have to see anymore. After the game, he approached Gehrig and set up a meeting with Ed Barrow for the next morning. Barrow offered him a contract that paid him a $1,500.00 bonus and $400 a month. That was a huge deal for the impoverished Gehrig’s and Lou signed. Not too sad about leaving a school where he had few friends. He was now a New York Yankee.

Gehrig played in seven games in New York, but Miller Huggins, the Yankee manager wanted him to get some more experience in the minors, so he was sent down to the Hartford Senators where he played in 59 games. He hit .304 with 24 homers. When the season ended in September he was called back up to the Yankees and hit .476 with four doubles a homer and seven RBI’s Because of his hot hitting Huggins wanted to add him to the World Series roster, but the request was denied by Kennesaw Landis mainly because of the objections of John McGraw the Giants manager. Yep, the same guy who sent Lou packing a couple of years before. It did not matter, the Yankees won in 6 games.

In 1924 Gehrig was with the Yankees in spring training but they did not have a position for him so he went back to Hartford and had an outstanding season hitting .369 with 37 HR’s, 40 doubles, and 13 triples in 134 games. When their season was over he again was called up to the Yankees and hit pretty well.

The most notable incident that happened during this stint came in Detroit. Gehrig hit a 2 run single but turned too far while rounding first and got caught off base. This resulted in an extended run down, in which Ty Cobb came running in from the outfield and tagged the rookie out, swearing at him while he did this. Gehrig, who by nature was usually dignified on the field, totally lost his cool. He started cussing at Cobb and continued to do so when he got back to the dugout. The umpire warned him to stop, but Lou kept it up. He was absolutely furious at the Georgia Peach. After another warning which went unheeded, he was tossed from the game, and that made him even madder!

After the game, still angered by the altercation, Gehrig went after Cobb in the tunnel between the dugout and the clubhouse. And despite the best efforts of Babe Ruth to contain him, he threw a punch at the meanest man in baseball history, unfortunately, for Lou, the punch missed, and he stumbled forward and hit his head on the concrete floor and was knocked out temporarily. When he woke, he asked one question, did I win? He had not, but then again not many did against Cobb.

In 1925, Huggins decided that Gehrig was ready to play for the Yankees. There was one large problem though. The Yankees already had a pretty good first baseman in Wally Pipp. So Gehrig did backup duty through April and May. On June 2nd, 1925, Higgins gave Gehrig a start at first base. He would start every game there for the next 2129 games. Contrary to the popular story about Pipp having a headache, the truth is Pipp had been hit in the head and was experiencing a double vision from two days prior. He did replace Gehrig as a defensive replacement in the next two games after he lost his starting job. Pipp would ultimately miss a couple of weeks with the double vision problem. He was 32 at the time. Gehrig’s streak actually started on June 1st when he pinch hit for Pee Wee Wanninger.

The rest is history. Gehrig went on to play in 2130 consecutive games, a record that was finally broken by Cal Ripken Jr in 1995. He played through various injuries and ailments, including broken fingers. When you consider that Steve Garvey’s streak was almost 900 games shorter, 1207, and still the NL record, it is an amazing feat for an athlete. And he did not have the benefits today’s players have. All the travel was by train, the hotels were nice for their time, the player’s diets and training regimens were totally different. One of Gehrig’s favorite foods was his mom’s pickled eels. And do not forget, they wore those wool uniforms. In the summer in some of those city’s, the humidity and heat would have been BRUTAL,

He spent his entire career with the Yankees and teamed up with Ruth as probably the most feared tandem ever in baseball. Had he not gotten ill with the disease that now carries his name, he might have made it to 3000 hits, he finished 279 short. He had 493 HR’s, the exact same number as Fred McGriff, he drove in 1995, he would have easily passed 2000, and his career BA was .340. Career slug, .632, OBP, .447 OPS 1.080. And for a guy his size, he stole 102 bases.

Lou won the MVP twice, was an all-star 6 times, He won 3 HR crowns, 5 RBI titles, and one batting title. Elected to the Hall in a special election in 1939 before his death in June of 1941, He actually was considered for enshrinement in 1936 before the rule that you had to be retired 5 years was put in place and garnered 28 % of the vote. The Iron Horse indeed. I respect the man for the dignity with which he faced certain death. His battle with ALS brought recognition to the disease, and today it still inspires those who are working hard to find a cure.