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Henry Louis Gehrig, born Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig
(June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941), was an American
first baseman in Major League Baseball who played
his entire career for the New York Yankees and was
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. His
career was prematurely ended by, amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis a degenerative terminal illness
which has come to be widely known under his name.

Life Before Professional Baseball

He was born on Manhattan island in New York City,
the son of German immigrants.

He first garnered attention for his baseball
talent on the national level while playing in a
game at Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field) on June 26,
1920. Gehrig's New York School of Commerce team
was playing a team from Chicago's Lane Tech High
School. With the score tied at 8 in the eighth
inning, Gehrig hit a game clinching grand slam
completely out of the stadium.

He attended Columbia University, where he was a
member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. However,
he could not play intercollegiate baseball due to
his having played baseball for a summer
professional league during his freshman year.


Pride of the Yankees

Gehrig joined the Yankees for the 1923 season,
making his debut on June 15, 1923. Over his first
two seasons, Gehrig would see limited playing
time, playing in only 23 games, usually as a pinch
hitter. He was not on the Yankees' 1923 World
Series roster. In 1925, he batted 437 times for a
respectable .295 batting average with 20 home runs
and 68 RBI.

1926 saw Gehrig's breakout season, batting .313
with 47 doubles, an American League leading 20
triples, 16 home runs, and 112 RBI. In the 1926
World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals,
Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and 4 RBI,
helping lead the Yankees to the World
Championship.

Gehrig would not bat under .300 again until his
last full season in 1938. He would have five
season with more than 40 home runs. He would lead
the League in RBIs five times (including a still
standing American League record of 184 in 1931)
thus establishing himself as a bonafide star.

Ruth and Gehrig

From 1923-1934, the Yankees had what many consider
the best offensive teammates in the history of
baseball: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. As of 2005,
the duo still hold numerous records for combined
hitting between two teammates over such a period
of time.

Prolific hitting is the extent of their
similarities. While Ruth had been raised in an
orphanage, and loved the lavish lifestyle his fame
and money brought him, Gehrig was a quiet family
man. It was not uncommon for his wife or parents
to accompany him on roadtrips with the team. While
Ruth would spend his time at clubs eating and
drinking too much, Gehrig usually remained in the
team hotel. Gehrig went so far as to deny
interviews to reporters, if he knew that they
cheated on their wives.

Toward the end of Ruth's tenure with the Yankees,
the pair stopped talking with each other over a
perceived insult to Gehrig's wife.

The streak

On June 1, 1925 Lou Gehrig was sent in to pinch
hit for shortstop "Pee Wee" Wanninger. The next
day, according to legend, regular firstbaseman
Wally Pipp showed up with a headache, and Gehrig
was given his job. No one could have imagined that
this would be the start of one of baseball's most
treasured record breaking acheivements: the
consecutive games played record.

As the streak progressed, Gehrig saw this as an
opportunity to make his own headlines. While Ruth
still received most of the press for his copious,
towering home runs, Gehrig saw this as something
that would be unique.

In all, Gehrig's streak would last for 2,130
consecutive games, even though in a few instances,
he barely kept the streak going through pinch
hitting appearances. On April 23, 1933, pitcher
Earl Whitehall of the Washington Senators knocked
Gehrig out with a pitch (he recovered, and was not
removed from the game). On June 14, 1933, he was
ejected from the game 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 carried from the field. He
led off the next game, and was immediately
replaced to keep the streak going. Throughout it
all, he kept playing, earning the nickname "The
Iron Horse".




Something's Wrong

Starting in Spring Training of 1939, almost
everyone in the Yankee organization became
accutely aware that Lou Gehrig was not the hitter
he once was, and that the deterioration of his
hitting skills seemed to have accelerated much
quicker than the average hitter approaching
Gehrig's age of 35. However, despite his reduced
performance, Yankee maanger Joe McCarthy could not
bring himself to bench Gehrig and end his streak.
On April 30, Gehrig went hitless against the
Senators, and finally decided that he could go no
further. He was not feeling well, but doctors in
New York were unable to do anything to help. He
had just played in his 2,130th consecutive game,
and it would also be his last.

On May 2, Gehrig approached McCarthy, and asked to
be benched "for the good of the team". Gehrig
himself took out the lineup card to the umpires
before the game, with Babe Dahlgren penciled in as
his replacement.

Gehrig was granted a leave of absence to pursue
testing at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Minnesota. The results of the testing showed that
Gehrig was suffering from amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS). It was a death sentence.

On June 21, the Yankees announced that Lou Gehrig
was retiring due to ALS, but would remain with the
team as a captain.


Farewell, Iron Horse

The Yankees celebrated "Lou Gehrig Day" on July
4. Several people and organizations came forward
to give Gehrig gifts and to speak kind words. The
Yankees retired his uniform number 4; the first
player in history to be afforded that honor. Babe
Ruth showed up, and ended their long feud, giving
his old teammate a hug. After the presentations,
Gehrig was asked if he wanted to speak. He had
planned nothing, and took a while to gather
himself up as he was clearly touched by the
outpouring of love from so many people. After a
time, 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 for 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, its 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.”

Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
that year, one of only a handful of players to
enter that Hall of Fame without a seven year wait.
Part of the reason for the accelerated voting was
to assure that Gehrig would live to see his
induction. He was too ill to attend the ceremony.

On June 2, 1941, at the age of 37, Gehrig finally
succumed to the disease that would now be know as
"Lou Gehrig's Disease", while at his home in
Riverdale, New York His remains were cremated, and
interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New
York.


Records, Distinctions, and Accomplishments

Career Statistics
G 	AB 	H 	2B 	3B 	HR 	R 	RBI 	BB 	SO 	SH 	HBP 	AVG
	OBP 	SLG
2164 	8,001 	2,721 	534 	163 	493 	1,888 	1,995
	1,508 	790 	106 	45 	.340 	.447 	.632

Despite roughly seventy years having past since
Gehrig played, many of his accomplishments remain
at the top or very nearly at the top of baeball's
record books.

His consecutive games played streak of 2,130
remained the [Major League Baseball]] record until
September 6, 1995, when Baltimore Oriole's
shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. played in his 2,131st
game to establish a new record.

On June 30, 1932, Gehrig became the first player
in history to hit four home runs in a single game,
doing so against the Philadelphia Athletics at
Shibe Park in Philadelphia. While other players
have tied it, it remains the Major League record.
His career total of 23 grand slam home runs (home
runs with the bases loaded) is the Major League
record.

His 1,995 career RBIs are still the third highest
total in Major League history, as is his .632
career slugging percentage. His 184 RBI in 1934 is
still the American League record for one season.
His .340 careet batting average is the tenth
highest of the twentieth century.

He and Stan Musial are the only players to amass
career totals of at least 500 doubles, 150
triples, and 400 home runs. He is also one of only
six players (Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio,
Ted Williams, and Stan Musial) to finish his
career with at least 350 home runs, 1,500 RBIs,
and a batting average of .320.

In 1934, he won the Triple Crown of hitting,
batting .363 with 49 home runs and 165 RBIs. In
1936, he was voted the American League Most
Valuable Player (MVP) by the Baseball Writers
Association of America (BBWAAA). He had previously
won the American League MVP Award in 1927 (before
the BBWAA started giving their award). The last
seven years of his career, (including the year he
retired) he was named to the All-Star Team (though
again, he would have made more of them had this
honor existed before 1933).

On April 19, 1949, the Yankees unveiled three
permanent marble monuments in Yankee Stadium's
center field. One is dedicated to the recently
deceased Babe Ruth, another to Gehrig, and a third
to former manager Miller Huggins, who had had his
own plaque at the park since May 30, 1932. This is
the beginning of what is known as "Monument
Park" at Yankee Stadium. While no longer "in
play" (the outfield walls have been moved in), it
includes a variety of plaques and monuments to
former Yankee greats.

In 2000, Gehrig was selected by the fans of Major
League Baseball as the greatest first baseman in
history, as a part of the selection of the
"All-Century" Team, celebrating the first 100
years of Major League Baseball.

In 2002, Major League Baseball fans selected his
July 4, 1939 farewell speech as the fifth greatest
moment in the first century of Major League
Baseball. The number 1 moment was Cal Ripken, Jr.
breaking Gehrig's consecutive games record on
September 6, 1995.

Lou Gehrig played in 27 winning World Series
games; of those, he drove in the winning run eight
times.

Gehrig is also notable for being the only player
to hit 40 home runs and 40 doubles in a season
three different times.

Aside from the statistical acheivements, Lou
Gehrig also stands as a historical connection.
When Gehrig began playing, players like Ty Cobb
and Eddie Collins were still playing. Even players
who had started their careers very near the turn
of the century, like Frank Chance, and Tris
Speaker were managing. When Gehrig left the game
young stars like Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, and Ted
Williams were starting their careers. Thus, Gehrig
got to play with and against, some of the greats
of the game whose careers spanned from the
beginning of Major League Baseball, to the 1960s.


On Film

The Pride of the Yankees, a 1942 film about
Gehrig's life, featured Gary Cooper. It received
11 Academy Award nominations, but only garnered
one win.