Gehrig joined the Yankees mid-way through the 1923 season and made his debut on June 15, 1923 as a pinch hitter. Over his first two seasons, Gehrig would see limited playing time, playing in only twenty-three games, usually as a pinch hitter. He was not on the Yankees' 1923 World Series roster, however. In 1925, he batted 437 times for a very respectable .295 batting average with twenty home runs and sixty-eight runs batted in.
Inarguably, 1926 was Gehrig's breakout season. He batted .313 with 47 doubles, an American League leading 20 triples, 16 home runs, and 112 runs-batted-in. In that year's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and 4 RBI's. Still, the Cardinals took the championship, winning the best-of-seven series four games to three. Lou Gehrig would not bat under .300 again until his last full season, 1938. He would have five seasons with more than 40 home runs and would lead the American League in RBI's five times (including 184 in 1931, a league record that stands to this day,) and established himself as a bonafide star in his own right despite playing in the omnipresent shadow of Babe Ruth.
From 1923-1934, the Yankees had what many consider the best offensive tandem in the history of baseball: George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Jr. and Henry Louis Gehrig. Long after their deaths, the duo still holds records for combined hitting between two teammates. Both men were prominent figures in America's growing German community, but, outside of their prolific hitting, there were few, if any, similarities between the two men. Babe Ruth had been raised in an orphanage (sent there by his father, who couldn't control him,) was very outspoken, arrogant, brash, and loved the lavish lifestyle his fame and money brought him. By stark contrast, Lou Gehrig was a quiet man who doted on his parents. It was not uncommon for his wife or his parents to accompany him on road trips with the team. While Ruth would spend his free time at clubs socializing, Gehrig typically remained in the team's hotel. Lou Gehrig even went so far as to deny interviews to reporters he knew cheated on their wives, believing that any man who was unfaithful to his wife was beneath contempt. Toward the end of Ruth's time with the Yankees, the two men completely stopped talking to one another over a perceived insult to Gehrig's wife, the former Eleanor Twitchel.
On June 1, 1925 Lou Gehrig was sent in to pinch hit for light-hitting shortstop Paul "Pee Wee" Wanninger. The next day, according to legend, regular first baseman Wally Pipp showed up with a headache and begged out of the lineup, and was replaced by Gehrig. This gave rise to what is, arguably, one of sports' greatest misconceptions. The truth is that Pipp, and indeed the Yankees as a team, were slumping, and manager Miller Huggins made several lineup changes to boost their performance. The genesis of "Pipp's Headache" actually occurred a month later, when he was "beaned" in practice by pitcher Charlie Caldwell and suffered a fractured skull. Pipp never played another game for the Yankees and was traded to the Cincinnati Reds after the season and played three more years.
However, no one could have imagined that fourteen years later, Gehrig would still be there, playing day after day through injury and illness. In a few instances, Lou Gehrig managed to keep the streak intact through pinch hitting appearances. One of those instances involved Washington Senators pitcher Earl Whitehall. On April 23, 1933, Whitehall beaned Lou Gehrig, knocking him nearly unconscious. Still, Gehrig recovered and was not removed from the game. On June 14, 1933, he was ejected from the game along with manager Joe McCarthy, but had already been at bat to get credit for the game. On July 13, 1934, Gehrig suffered a lumbago seizure, and had to be assisted off the field. The next day he led off the game (and was recorded as the shortstop, even though he didn't actually take the field,) to keep the streak going. Gehrig singled and was immediately replaced by a pinch runner to rest his throbbing back.
Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games played stood until September 6, 1995, when Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game to establish a new record. Coincidentally, the monumental event occurred in Baltimore, which has several distinctions in regard to the New York Yankees. Firstly, the Yankees were founded as the Baltimore Orioles (the current Orioles franchise operated as the St. Louis Browns from 1902 to 1953). Secondly, Babe Ruth was a native of Baltimore. And thirdly, the second base area of the playing field at the Orioles' current home park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, was the former location of the tavern owned by Babe Ruth's father, George Ruth, Sr.
In the Yankees' 1939 spring training, almost everyone in the Yankees organization realized that Lou Gehrig was no longer the ballplayer he once was. But even more alarmingly, he was also becoming increasingly clumsy and weak. They likely believed that it was due to the cumulative effect of injuries and the wear and tear fourteen years of professional baseball had put on his body. But at age 35, Lou Gehrig was still a relatively young man and his teammates thought that he had at least a couple of more seasons left in him. Although he was pressured by ownership to relegate Lou Gehrig to a part-time role, Joe McCarthy could simply not bring himself to bench Gehrig.
Sadly, he would not have to.
On April 30, Lou Gehrig went hitless against the weak Washington Senators (Pete Appleton would be the final pitcher Gehrig faced,) and finally decided that he could go no further. He was not feeling well, and doctors in New York were unable to do anything to help him. He had just played his 2,130th consecutive major league game. No one knew it would be the very last of his career.
On May 2, Lou Gehrig approached Joe McCarthy and asked to be benched "for the good of the team." Gehrig himself took the lineup card, with Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren penciled in as the first baseman, out to the shocked umpires before the game. He was granted a leave of absence to pursue further testing at the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The result of the batteries of tests the doctors gave him was a virtual death sentence. Henry Louis Gehrig was suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He was given just a few more years to live.
On June 21, the Yankees announced that Lou Gehrig was retiring due to his illness, but would remain with the team as a captain.
The New York Yankees celebrated "Lou Gehrig Day" on July 4, 1939, between games of a holiday doubleheader against the Washington Senators. Numerous people, including many from other major league teams, came forward to give Gehrig gifts and to shower praise on the dying slugger. The 1927 World Championship banner, from Gehrig's first World Series win, was raised on the flagpole. (Gehrig was on the Yankee roster in 1923 but did not play in that year's World Series, which the Yankees won.) Members of the 1927 Yankees, known as "Murderer's Row" and considered the greatest team in baseball history by many, attended the ceremonies, including pitcher George Pipgras, who was by then an umpire and officiated at the day's games.
The Yankees retired his uniform number 4, making him the first player in history to be afforded that honor. Babe Ruth even showed up and ended their long-standing feud by giving his old teammate a hug.
After the presentations, Gehrig was asked if he wanted to speak. The shy, quiet Gehrig had planned nothing and did not expect to be asked to speak. He took a few moments to compose himself after the tremendous outpouring of love and respect from so many people.
He approached the microphone, and addressed the crowd:
"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 seventeen years and I 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 have considered 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 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 by saying that I might have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for. Thank you."
Fearing that if they adhered to the mandatory five year waiting period, Lou Gehrig would not live to see his induction into Baseball's Hall of Fame, the Baseball Writers Association of America, which was then the only body that conducted the Hall of Fame induction voting, waived the five year mandatory waiting period and enshrined him later that year during a special session at the annual winter meetings in Cincinnati. Gehrig, however, was too ill to attend.
On June 2, 1941, at the age of only 37, Henry Louis Gehrig died at his home in The Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale. The disease that robbed him of his life and baseball career would come to be known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease."
Lou Gehrig was cremated and interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
The Yankees dedicated a monument to Gehrig on July 6, 1941. It calls him "A man, a gentleman and a great ballplayer whose amazing record of 2,130 consecutive games should stand for all time." The record stood for another 54 years. The monument also gives the date of its dedication as "July the Fourth 1941," but it rained that day, a Friday, and the Yankees waited until Sunday the 6th, when a larger crowd would be on hand than for the Saturday game, to officially dedicate the Monument. It was the second Monument to be placed in front of the center field flagpole in Yankee Stadium, following the one to Miller Huggins in 1932. The Monument to Babe Ruth was dedicated in 1949, and the three stood in front of the flagpole until the Stadium closed for renovations in 1973. Upon its reopening, the three Monuments (Gehrig's on the left, Huggins' in the center, Ruth's on the right) were placed in front of a new flagpole in the Stadium's Monument Park, where they still rest today.
--Wikipedia
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