Posted on 05/12/2020 9:37:28 PM PDT by nickcarraway
ou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir,” Alan D. Gaff (Simon & Schuster)
In the pre-television and internet era, it’s hard to imagine the wattage a star player such as Lou Gehrig created or the emotion generated by his famous 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium.
Decades later, as the Baltimore Orioles’ Cal Ripken closed in on the consecutive games record Gehrig had held since Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis took him out of the lineup, the ghost of Gehrig visited that 1995 season, reminding us again of the man of uncommon decency and grace and a body built to drive baseballs out of stadiums.
Early in his career, Gehrig was persuaded to write a series of newspaper essays about baseball life. How much editing took place is unclear but Gehrig was a student at Columbia University when the Yankees took note of his baseball skills — so presumably Gehrig could string together some coherent thoughts.
And the pieces — all reproduced in this book — mesh with the polite, reserved, determined and humble son of German immigrants superbly painted in Jonathan Eig’s definitive Gehrig biography, “The Luckiest Man.”
Imagine essays today by a sports superstar absent any revelations to shock and ignite social media. Gehrig, however, finds goodness in all his teammates and competitors, even perhaps the roughest player ever — Ty Cobb.
ALS remains an “orphan” disease, not afflicting enough people to draw the major research attention and funding as does cancer, for example. Now most commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, it relentlessly punishes its victims, robbing them of their muscle coordination and their ability to speak as their neuro-muscular systems break down.
Someday ALS will be conquered and that will revive debate about how much longer Gehrig might have played. He was just 37 when he died and he was showing symptoms four years earlier.
Ever since he played, the narrative on Gehrig mostly follows his baseball achievements and his consecutive games record that stood for half a century — one of the most iconic feats in all of sports.
Gaff astutely crafts a biography to accompany Gehrig’s columns and focuses on details that parallel Gehrig’s generosity of spirit.
Perhaps most movingly, Gaff revisits the Yankee great’s post-baseball career. Despite the ravages of ALS, Gehrig worked for the parole board, counseling young men who had taken a wrong turn in life. “Even when he could barely sit in his office chair, he came to work everyday,” Gaff writes of Gehrig.
Hundreds of those young men filed past Gehrig’s coffin the day after he died.
One of Gehrig’s last visitors was Ed Barrow, Yankees’ general manager from 1921 to 1927. Gaff reports that by then Gehrig could not walk, dress or feed himself. Yet as Barrow left, Gehrig said “I’ll beat it, boss.”
Batting average .340
Hits 2,721
Home runs 493
Runs batted in 1,995
He would have beat Ruth.
What a sad thing that was.
Ruth was a pitcher for his first years and played a number of seasons with the dead ball.
just had a friend die from ALS- Terrible Terrible disease-
“I’m not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference.”
Lou “The Iron Horse” Gehrig
Beat him how? They played together for six or seven years, and were on the same team over a decade.
I think the poster is referring to statistics - specifically home runs.
I think Babe Ruth had 15 good years as a batter, then was not that great his last year and change.
Gehrig had 12 years+ years he was playing well.
Ruth's physical shape went off a cliff at 38. Gehrig was 35 when he was forced to stop playing. He was certainly in much better shape than Ruth. But it's hard to say, even some healthy players hit a wall in terms of performance.
If Gehrig had played 5 more years at 40 HR per, he’d still come up short of Ruth. There was no way he catches Ruth.
Interesting that prior to the announcement of his illness, Gehrig was catching flack from some sportswriters for his declining play.
Finally, there have been some medical opinions offered that Gehrig was not afflicted with ALS, but instead brain trauma from playing football for years, essentially without a helmet. He apparently suffered several (many?) concussions.
Good points, if you look at his stats in his final full season, described as declining, they’d get a player a 10 year/$300M deal.
.295/29/114. 4.2WAR, OPS .932
First biography I ever read in my life. (4th grade)
Guy was something special.
Gehrig followed Ruth in the batting order (imagine what an inning like that was like for an opposing pitcher!). Here is what “Murderer’s Row” typically looked like
Combs (.356)
Koenig (.285)
Ruth (.356)
Gehrig (.373)
Meusel (.337)
Lazzeri (.309)
Dugan (.269)
Collins (.275)
Pitcher
It looks like it would have been a rough day. Poor Mark Koenig. I imagine he was seeing the pitcher’s absolute best (you didn’t want to put any “ducks on the pond” for Ruth/Gehrig). Dugan and Collins are the weak links...and every fourth time up, they were reaching base.
There are some projection methods that try to determine how a player would have done in his career had he a normal decline period and his career had not been interrupted. They were designed primarily for the players whose career was interrupted by WWII but theoretically should work for players whose career ended prematurely.
Bill James ran the projection for Lou Gehrig: 689 home runs, 2,879 RBI, .330 BA, and 3,928 hits.
I’m very sorry to hear of your loss. Was it, by any chance, Mark in SE Pennsylvania?
Thanks, no she was a friend out in Maine- youngish girl in her 40’s, such an awful way to go-
Got another friend with a lung condition like cystic fibrosis- but it’s different- can’t remember name right now- they’re giving him 5-7 years tops- even with a lung transplant the condition will come back i guess- he’s got a tough decision to make- He’s older- in 60’s-
also knew a kid in my town that died of ALS- didn’t know him personally- but knew his family pretty well- he was only in 30’s- that family has had to deal with a lot- seems like they just keep getting hit hard fro some reason- they lost a daughter in her 20’s to cancer- then another in her 20’s due to heart malfunction-
Ugggh- life is hard fro some sometimes- -
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