Lou Gehrig

Playing Second Base to the Babe?

Henry Louis Gehrig was born in 1903 to German immigrants in New York City. His parents, particularly his mom, insisted that he get an education. Lou graduated from high school (not common in those days) and won an athletic scholarship (football actually) to Columbia University. His mom, though, wanted him to pursue a professional career like engineering and wasn't entirely pleased when he was tapped by the majors after his second year and signed with the New York Yankees in 1923. Later, though, she changed her mind.

Writing about Lou in today's era is tough because except for his being one of the greatest baseball players ever and that he faced advancing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, a gradual and even now incurable loss of muscular control (now almost universally referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease) with incredible dignity and courage, he led a pretty boring life. He didn't party or fiddle around - two prerequisites for a biography by today's standards. So if you want a best selling biography today you have to turn to the doings of some of our elected or religious leaders who set the standards of Traditional Family Values by making whoopee with their congregations, interns, or chance acquaintances.

Photographs of Lou inevitably show a smiling and confident athlete, and it will surprise most readers to learn that Lou was actually an extremely shy man who became tongue tied in the presence of women. You can make out what you like that Lou's mother, Christina, had a bit of an - ah - "assertive" personality. Even after Lou became a professional ballplayer, and he met a prospective Mrs. Lou Gehrig, he would bring her over to visit his mother. But Mom Gehrig would find some reason not to approve of Lou's choice, and so Lou would try again. And again Mom would always object.

Finally Mary Lieb, who along with her husband sportswriter Fred Lieb was a good friend of Lou, told Lou, dang it, just marry who he wanted to and to heck with what his mother thought. Once he was married, Mary said, then his mother would come around. It didn't work out that way, and Mom Gehrig never really did care much for Lou's final selection, a young lady named Eleanor O'Conner.

Actually Eleanor rubbed a number of people the wrong way, mostly because she was a bit ahead of her time. In that day and age, ladies were supposed to stay in the background and be content with the home-helpmeet role. But Eleanor realized her non-assertive husband needed a bit of a push to take advantage of everything that his talents entitled him to. So she began to act as his advisor and manager in non-baseball areas. For what it's worth, Babe Ruth's second wife, Clarie, also managed her husband's interests. It was Claire that kept Babe financially afloat and prevented him from spending himself into penury.

Ironically, it was Claire and Eleanor who inadvertently cemented the famous argument between Babe and Lou. It really wasn't the ladies' fault, and they were actually trying to fix the problem. In their early years together, Babe and Lou usually got along fine, most of the time, sort of. There were times Lou would join Babe in the barnstorming exhibition matches that Babe made around the country. The people, though, paid to see Babe, and this may have rankled Lou a bit although he never showed it.

You read that the rift between the two sluggers was caused by some comment Lou made about Babe's family. Actually what seems to have happened is Lou's mom, as opinionated as ever, remarked how Claire should make sure her older daughter (who was a bit of a tomboy) dress up as nice as they did their youngest. Now Babe actually liked Lou's mom, but told Lou he didn't appreciate the comment. No one knows exactly how Lou replied, but evidently what he said ticked Babe off even more. So the two men quit speaking, although this incident itself would probably have blown over in time.

But what solidified the break was when Lou and Eleanor decided to take a vacation to Europe. During the cruise they found that the Ruths were also on board, and the Gehrigs - or at least Lou - made it a point of staying clear of the Babe and Claire. But once while walking along the deck, Eleanor saw Claire sitting in a deck chair. The two women exchanged greetings, and Eleanor sat down to talk. They agreed their husbands were being ridiculous (a common opinion among wives), and Eleanor said she'd like to talk to Babe. Claire said fine, and Eleanor went to the Ruths' cabin and knocked on the door.

There sitting like a cheerful Buddha was the Babe, caviar in one hand and champagne in the other. He greeted Eleanor, and the two had a fine time talking, eating the caviar, and drinking the champagne. Eleanor was more of an imbiber than her husband (Lou did drink, but not too much), and she lost track of the time.

All probably would have gone well, but Lou began wondering where the heck Eleanor was. After looking around the ship, he started getting worried. After more searching, he began to panic. Where was Eleanor? Had she fallen overboard?

Well eventually he found Eleanor in the last place he expected which was still Babe's cabin. By that time more caviar and a good chunk of the champagne had been consumed, and Eleanor admitted she was well under the influence. Despite the inevitable speculation that there had been some hanky panky going on, Eleanor always denied it and was certainly telling the truth. But Lou was furious and took his delinquent wife away. Babe and Lou didn't speak for years.

Like virtually all ballplayers, Lou did his stint in the minors. He was even returned to the minors after his first season in the majors to gain more experience. So as good as Lou was, he still had to work at it. And like virtually all sports figures then and up to the 1960's, he got a second "real" job in the off season.

In Lou's time, baseball was pretty much the working man's sport. Or for that matter, it was nearly the only sport. Today anyone can sit in front of the tube 24/7 beer in hand and chips at side and watch the never ending thrill of victory and the agony of defeat of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, golf, track, NASCAR, or poker. But in the 1930's there were only three sports of any interest: horseracing, boxing, and of course baseball. Football was mostly a college sport, and track and field was limited to AAU meets and the Olympics.

Also the megasalaries now commanded by even mediocre players were far in the future. Yes, Lou in his prime made $39,000 - very high pay for the time - but most players had adequate, but not outstanding incomes. When the season was over, it wasn't unusual for people around town to see the ballplayers working at an everyday job. Some ballplayers became butchers and bakers, and maybe some even tried their hand at candlestick making. Lou, though, became a stockbroker.

But then came the 1929 crash and Lou found stock brokers were not the most popular people around. Lou didn't give up the job right away, but in the mid-1930's, he turned - like many sports figures then and now - to the entertainment industry.

There had been some talk that Johnny Weissmuller (who first donned the loincloth in 1932) was no longer going to be playing Tarzan. So Lou went to the Hollywood for a screen test where he posed for photos decked out in the Tarzan loincloth and leopardskin tunic. Sad to say, the tests were not a success, and when Edgar Rice Borroughs, Tarzan's creator, saw the photos, he wrote to say that Lou was a great first baseman.

The problem was that Lou - although in excellent shape - had a physique that was a bit odd. His power for hitting came not only came from his arms but his legs. The latter were so large and muscular that when scantily clad, Lou looked like he was a barrel supported on a couple of tree trunks. Tarzan, the producers thought, had to be strong and well built, yes, but with some sleekness. So Johnny - a record setting Olympic swimmer - kept playing Tarzan until the late 1940's when he switched to the more fully clad role of Jungle Jim.

But Lou did not give up on Hollywood or it on him (he was too big a potential box office draw). Westerns were the rage, and Lou looked a lot better in a cowboy outfit than a loincloth, and a deal was reached. The movie was titled Rawhide - no relation to the Clint Eastwood TV series - and had a bit of an odd plot. Lou Gehrig - he played himself - had decided to retire from baseball and move with his sister to a ranch out West. You had the usual bad guys who were running a Western style protection racket where the strong arm man (who would shoot defenseless old men in the arm) was Three Stooges regular baddie Dick Curtis.

Of course Lou refused to pay and joined forces with an honest lawyer (the movie was fiction, after all). Naturally there was the obligatory barroom fight (which Lou won by beaning the bad guys by pitching billiard balls) and the final horseback chase scene (despite automobiles driving up and down the wide dirt street of the town). Lou played the role a bit stiff even considering the acting style of the day, but the movie was fairly well received. In any case Rawhide was Lou's first and last starring role.

In his early days, Lou was always being compared to Babe Ruth. If Lou ever felt he was playing second base to the Babe, he never let on. He always said Babe was the best, but by the mid-1930's Babe had grown massively overweight and wasn't playing well. The Yankees traded him to the Boston Braves, and now Lou was the Yankee's main man. But almost immediately Lou's was eclipsed - at least in writing of the press - by a young rookie, Joseph Paul DiMaggio. Joltin' Joe began playing for the Yankees in 1936, and was immediately the hot copy for the writers who touted him as the #1 player. This was not really correct since for a while Joe's statistics remained behind Lou's.

Of course, Lou's biggest claim to fame was being baseball's "Iron Horse" who played 2130 consecutive games, a record that stood until 1995 when Cal Ripken finished the 7th inning of his 2131st game. Nothing could keep Lou out of the lineup. And he even played one game that was canceled before the seventh inning and so wasn't on his official talley. There were certainly times he should have sat out. In one game he was hit in the forehead by a fastball and knocked cold. Although the next day he wasn't feeling well and had such a huge bump on his head he had to find a larger cap, he played the game.

But by the late 1930's, Lou found he was getting tired more easily and was having to adjust his play. Although it wasn't anything definite - he still hit 37 homers in 1938, he was clearly not playing as well as before. But by late April of the next year, he had hit no home runs (not even in training), and his batting average was .143. After his 2130th consecutive game, he told the manager to take him out of the lineup as his playing was hurting the team.

Everyone saw there was something more here than just a player getting old. Lou and Eleanor went to the Mayo clinic where the doctors diagnosed ALS. The duration of the illness isn't predictable and victims can survive from months to decades. In Lou's case the progression of the disease was typical, and he lived two more years, dying in 1941, age 37.

Shortly after Lou announced his retirement, the Yankees staged Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day on July 4,1939. Whether it was due to his "college years" or just a natural gift, Lou delivered one of the most memorable speeches ever. The fans gave him such applause that, it took him some time to compose himself before stepping up to the microphone.

Normally CooperToons eschews the fine, the wholesome, the uplifting, the inspiring. But since Lou's speech has been compared in eloquence to Lincoln's Farewell Speech at Springfield, CooperToons feels Lou's words deserved to be quoted in toto.

For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the 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 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 white coats remember you with trophies, that's something.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter, that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so 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 in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for.

References

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, Jonathan Eig, The most recent biography. Lou did get ejected from a game though.