Digital Ink Los Angeles

Born: June 19, 1903 Died: June 2 1941

Lou Gehrig played on one of the best professional baseball teams of all time — the early 20th Century New York Yankees. He banged in 1,995 RBIs in 17 seasons, with a lifetime batting average of .340, and respectable .632 slugging percentage. Three of the top six RBI seasons in baseball history belong to Gehrig. He was selected to each of the first seven All-Star games and won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award in 1927 and 1936. He was also a Triple Crown winner in 1934, leading the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBIs.

Lou Gehrig was considered the perfect teammate, described by many as unselfish. He was also one of the greatest fielding first-basemen of all-time, with a career .991 fielding percentage. As a young Yankee slugger, he followed the legendary Babe Ruth in the lineup. Gehrig described this fittingly:

“Lets face it. I’m not a headline guy. I always knew that as long as I was following Babe to the plate I could have gone up there and stood on my head. No one would have noticed the difference. When the Babe was through swinging, whether he hit one or fanned, nobody paid any attention to the next hitter. They all were talking about what the Babe had done.”

Lou Gehrig played in more than 2000 consecutive games. He was the guy who showed up every day, put on the uniform, grinned at the media circus, and persisted in the folly of baseball — a sport meant for kids, but played by men.

Lou Gehrig’s extraordinary streak of consecutive games came to an end on the May 2, 1939, in Detroit, when Lou took himself out of the lineup because he thought his puzzling physical weakness was a detriment to the team and he needed time to “get in better shape.” Gehrig actually took the lineup card out to a crew of shocked umpires before the game, ending a 14-year streak. Before the game began, the stadium announcer told fans, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time Lou Gehrig’s name will not appear on the Yankee lineup in 2,130 consecutive games.”

The Detroit Tigers fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes. According to Wikipedia, “A wire service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation’s newspapers. Other than his retirement ceremony, it is the most-reproduced and best-remembered visual image of Gehrig.”

At the Mayo Clinic, after six days of extensive testing, the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was confirmed on June 19, Gehrig’s 36th birthday. The prognosis was grim: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking, and a life expectancy of fewer than three years, although there would be no impairment of mental functions. Eleanor Gehrig was told that the cause of ALS was unknown but it was painless, non-contagious and cruel — the motor function of the central nervous system is destroyed, but the mind remains fully aware to the end.

On July 4th, 1939, Gehrig’s retirement ceremony reduced all of Yankee Stadium to tears, including the Iron Horse himself. He remained a stoic figure of human strength to the end, dying from his illness on June 2, 1941, at the age of 37. Today, on his 106th birthday, Lou Gehrig remains a hero.