On June 21, 1939, the New York Yankees announced that Lou Gehrig (left), their long-time first baseman would be retiring from baseball. "The Iron Horse", who had earned that mantle by appearing in what was then a world record 2,130 consecutive straight games had recently been diagnosed as having amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neuro-muscular disease which causes paralysis in those who have it, eventually resulting in death.
Lou Gehrig's Amazing Career in Baseball
Lou Gehrig, a player of amazing durability, and great offensive talent as a hitter had spent his entire career in Major League Baseball with the
New York Yankees from 1923 through 1939. He had been with then during their glorious period of dominance when they won an astonishing six World Championships between 1927 and 1938. Having come up to the Yankees in 1923, Gehrig took over the first baseman's job in 1925 from Wally Pipp. “I took the two most expensive aspirins in history.” said Pipp, who sat out a 1925 game with a headache and lost his position to Lou Gehrig, who would play every game there for the Yankees for the remainder of his career. After that it was a ton of remarkable records for "The Iron Horse": he finished his career with an amazing lifetime batting average of .340. Add to that 2,271 runs batted in, 493 home runs a total of 1,195 runs batted in. Further, he led the American League in home runs three times, RBIs five times, and he put up eight seasons with 200+ hits.
Gehrig's Long Decline
Starting with the 1938 season he seemed to drop off the amazing standard which he had set for himself. He finished the season with a .295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits; a fine total for any player but not the spectacular numbers that Gehrig was used to. Gehrig himself remarked "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." As the 1939 season began. it was clear that he no longer possessed his former prowess. He seemed slow on the base paths, and by the end of Spring Training he had not hit a single home run. When he was able to hit, he showed little power and during batting practice one afternoon, Joe DiMaggio watched in astonishment as the Yankees' hitting star missed 10 fat pitches in a row. As the 1939 season moved through April Gehrig had only one RBI, and a lowly .143 batting average. Sports writer James Kahn wrote: "I think there is something wrong with him. Physically wrong, I mean. I don't know what it is, but I am satisfied that it goes far beyond his ball-playing...for some reason that I do not know, his old power isn't there ... He is meeting the ball, time after time, and it isn't going anywhere." Gehrig knew that he wasn't up to his own standard so on May 2, he went to Yankees manager Joe McCarthy and asked to be benched "for the good of the team."
The Diagnosis
Gehrig took a plane to Chicago and checked himself into the Mayo Clinic. There, after six days of tests, the doctors gave him the diagnosis: Gehrig was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease which deprives nerve cells of their ability to interact with the body's muscles. This disease causes rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty with swallowing or speaking, and left Lou Gehrig with a life expectancy of fewer than three years. The cause of the disease was unknown then and now. And then, as now, there is no cure.
Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day....
The Mayo Clinic made their findings public on June 19, 1939. This led the Yankees to announce Gehrig's retirement on this day, June 21 of that year. The game played on July 4, 1939 was designated as "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium. Ceremonies to honor this great player were held between games of a double-header. In it's coverage, the New York Time's John Drebinger wrote that the ceremony was "...perhaps as colorful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field. 61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell." Dignitaries and former Yankees players lined up to speak in tribute to Gehrig, most of them
"For the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break. (pause) Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. When you look around, wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today?... that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."
The Baseball Writers' Association held a special winter meeting on Dec. 7 of 1939, during which Lou Gehrig was inducted to that hall of baseball honor as a result of a special election related to his illness. Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941 at his home in the Bronx, New York. His wife, Eleanor, with whom he had no children never remarried, saying: "I had the best of it. I would not have traded two minutes of my life with that man for 40 years with another." She dedicated the rest of her life to the support of ALS research. Eleanor survived her husband by 43 years, passing away on her 80'th birthday, March 6, 1984.
It is perhaps a sad thing that the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) has come to be known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Just as the
neurological disorder with which I must do battle every day, "Parkinson's Disease" has come to be known by that name after the doctor who first wrote about it, James Parkinson (who wrote "Essay on the Shaking Palsy" in 1817). With both maladies there is no known cause or cure, but scientists and doctors continue to study these disorders and make gains on them every day. Perhaps one day these names will come to be associated with the great victories that will one day be achieved when a cure for each one is found. For this we can only pray. But if you wish to do more than that try
http://www.alsa.org/donate/ to help with research on ALS or go to www.michaeljfox.org/ to help with research on Parkinson's.
Sources =
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gehrig-lou
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baseball_(documentary)#Inning_5:_Shadow_Ball_(1930_to_1940)
https://www.biography.com/athlete/lou-gehrig
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/
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