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Lou Gehrig’s worst full season was his best. Despite leading the league in games played (as always), he hit fewer than 30 homers for the first time in a decade, and his batting average dropped nearly 60 points and tied for his career low. His conditioning was questioned, his games-played streak was scrutinized, his All-Star selection was widely lamented. And even when the season ended with his Yankees once again victorious in the World Series, Gehrig’s four singles in 14 at-bats had barely been a factor. Back in 1938, it would have been preposterous to propose that Gehrig was having...

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...

1939: New York Yankee ironman Lou Gehrig tells manager Joe McCarthy that he is taking himself out of the starting lineup. Gehrig will never play again. His record of 2,130 straight games played will stand until Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken tops the streak in 1995. 1949: Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe gets his first career start, shutting out the Cincinnati Reds 3-0. He goes on to lead the Dodgers’ pitching rotation with 17 wins on their way to a National League pennant. Newcombe will lose two seasons to the Army during the Korean War. 1954: The St. Louis Cardinals’ Stan...

Sachio Kinugasa, the Japanese slugger who in 1987 broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, only to see his testament to durability exceeded nine years later by Cal Ripken Jr., died on Monday. He was 71. The cause was colon cancer, according to reports in the Japanese news media, which did not specify where he died. In Japan, Kinugasa embodied consistency and effort by playing in game after game for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp over 17 years despite broken bones, slumps and age. Even after a pitch fractured his left shoulder blade in 1979 — about halfway through his...

On this day in 1934, Washington Senator's backup catcher Morris "Moe" Berg's streak of 117 games in a row without committing an error comes to an end, setting an American League record. Berg wasn't your typical athlete: before signing with the Brooklyn Robins (they wouldn't become the Dodgers until 1932), he graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. magna cum laude in modern languages. Ted Lyons, Berg's teammate with the White Sox, would say that "he can speak seven languages but can't hit in any of them." Berg didn't have a great bat, but when every one of manager Ray...

In 1934, Lefty Gomez, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and other American League and National League stars barnstormed in Japan. Gomez captured many images of the trip with his 16-mm camera. An excerpt from the forthcoming book Lefty: American Odyssey is featured in this week’s Sports Illustrated. Some of the intriguing video footage can be viewed, courtesy of Random House.

Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and 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 consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest...

This would be consided a vanity post I suppose.My Step-dad has just been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) and this will probably be his last X-Mas. There are some web support groups out there, but I'm wondering if there are any Freepers out there who have had to deal with this, and could possibly share some personal insight and advice. It would also be a great help to my mom whom I'm teaching how to use e-mail, and someday I shall convert her into a Freeper :). We worked as poll checkers together for the Bush Campaign. Many, many...

John Winchester is running out of time. The simplest of tasks -- like taking a breath -- is becoming more and more difficult. The Medina man is literally dying a little more every day. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- or Lou Gehrig's disease as it is more commonly known -- has already robbed the 36-year-old, once-active former college football player of the use of his legs. Winchester uses a wheelchair; his arms are heavy and now rest at his side most of the time. He is forced to rely on others, like his wife, Megan, for help. When he tries to...