49 Fun Facts About Lou Gehrig

In 1935, with Babe Ruth gone, manager Joe McCarthy gave Lou Gehrig which role?

Team captain. It was as captain that he carried the lineup card to the umpires on May 2, 1939, with his own name missing from it for the first time in 2,130 games.

Which famous baseball nickname belonged to Lou Gehrig?

The Iron Horse. It was old slang for a steam locomotive, and it fit: X-rays later showed fractures that had healed while he kept playing.

Gehrig's 2,130-game streak began on June 1, 1925, when he entered a game in what role?

Pinch hitter. He batted for shortstop Pee Wee Wanninger that day and only afterward took over first base, where he stayed for the next 14 years.

In 1939 Gehrig became the first MLB player to receive which honor?

Retired number: no Yankee has worn No. 4 since, and the gesture caught on so well that the club has now retired every number from 1 through 9.

Which disease ended Gehrig's career and is now often named after him in the US?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, destroys the body's motor function but spares the mind. Doctors gave Gehrig three years at best, and he died just under two years later.

Gehrig gave his 'luckiest man on the face of the earth' speech on which holiday in 1939?

Independence Day. Between games of a July 4 doubleheader, two weeks after his diagnosis, Gehrig told the Yankee Stadium crowd he was the luckiest man alive.

Why was a 1931 Gehrig home run erased?

Passed runner: Lyn Lary thought the ball had been caught and headed for the dugout, so Gehrig was called out and finished level with Babe Ruth at 46.

Why couldn't Ruth win Gehrig's 1927 MVP award?

Past winners were ineligible, and Ruth had won in 1923. Gehrig still earned it, hitting .373 with 47 homers, more than anyone but Ruth had ever hit in a season.

Who broke Gehrig's consecutive-games record in 1995?

Cal Ripken Jr. passed him on September 6, 1995, then ran his own streak to 2,632 games before choosing to sit one out near the end of the 1998 season.

Gehrig held the career grand slam record with 23 until which player broke it?

Alex Rodriguez hit his record 24th grand slam at Yankee Stadium in September 2013, weeks after returning from hip surgery and while appealing a 211-game doping suspension.

Why did Lou Gehrig grow up as an only child?

His three siblings died young: two sisters and a brother never got past infancy, leaving a mother determined that her one surviving child would get a good education.

Until he married at age 30, where did Lou Gehrig live?

With his parents. His mother, the family's breadwinner, broke up his earlier romances and disapproved of the woman he finally married in 1933.

In 1933, Lou Gehrig was the American League's first baseman in the first-ever edition of which baseball event?

All-Star Game. He was chosen for each of the first seven, the last in 1939, when he could no longer play and took part only by carrying out the lineup card.

Which language did Lou Gehrig's family speak at home when he was a boy?

German. It was the language of Babe Ruth's childhood home too, and Ruth would speak some of it when he came to the Gehrigs' for dinner.

At 17, Gehrig hit a grand slam out of which ballpark as New York's high school champions played Chicago's in 1920?

Wrigley Field, then called Cubs Park. More than 10,000 people saw the ninth-inning blast, which first made the New York schoolboy a national name.

Which university did Gehrig attend before turning pro?

Columbia. He studied engineering there for two years, found the coursework hard, and left when the Yankees offered a $1,500 bonus his poor family could not turn down.

On the day Yankee Stadium hosted its first game in 1923, college pitcher Gehrig set which single-game school record?

Most strikeouts: he fanned 17 batters in a game his team still lost. Within two weeks a Yankees scout had signed him, though it was his hitting, far more than his pitching, that won the contract.

What position did Gehrig play on his college football team?

Fullback. Football was his way in: he was recruited on a football scholarship and only later joined the baseball team that made his name.

Gehrig's only professional team based outside New York City played in which Connecticut city?

Hartford. The Yankees sent him to its minor-league club for seasoning, and after he hit .369 there in 1924 he was a Yankee for good.

In baseball lore, which first baseman sat out with a headache in 1925 and lost his job to Gehrig?

Wally Pipp. He is quoted as saying he took the two most expensive aspirins in history, though he was also hitting just .244 for a team stuck near the bottom of the league.

Which Yankees manager first made Gehrig his starting first baseman in 1925?

Miller Huggins benched three slumping regulars that day to shake up a losing club. In his farewell speech 14 years later, Gehrig still called him 'that wonderful little fellow'.

Batting cleanup behind Babe Ruth, Gehrig led the American League five times in which category?

Runs batted in. Hitting right behind Babe Ruth meant plenty of runners to bring home, and Gehrig drove in 150 or more in seven different seasons.

What was the nickname of the 1927 Yankees lineup that overshadowed Gehrig's MVP season?

Murderers' Row. Its two sluggers staged a home run race that year: Gehrig was ahead of Babe Ruth as late as August, before Ruth surged to a record 60 and Gehrig finished with 47.

In 1932 Gehrig became the 20th century's first to do what in a game?

Hit four home runs. He nearly had a fifth, but Philadelphia outfielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of his last drive at the center-field fence.

Whose retirement announcement stole the headlines from Gehrig's greatest game, in 1932?

John McGraw quit that day after three decades as a big-league manager. It was the same McGraw who in 1923 had refused to let the Yankees add young Gehrig to their World Series roster.

Who urged Gehrig to sit out a game in 1938 and end his streak at 1,999?

His wife. She argued that 1,999 would be remembered better than a round number, but he played anyway, got a hit, and kept going for 130 more games.

Gehrig's 1934 Triple Crown combined home runs, RBIs and which category?

Batting average. He hit .363, and it came in Babe Ruth's last season as a Yankee, when the fading Ruth hit 22 home runs to Gehrig's 49.

In 1936 Gehrig won his second MVP award but lost the headlines to which rookie teammate?

Joe DiMaggio. Gehrig out-hit the rookie that year, but as with Babe Ruth before him, the headlines went to the more glamorous teammate.

When Gehrig's Yankees first wore uniform numbers in 1929, what did each starter's number show?

His spot in the batting order. Babe Ruth hit third and wore 3, and Gehrig, the cleanup man behind him, wore 4, which made walking Ruth on purpose a risky idea.

Gehrig was the first athlete to appear on boxes of which breakfast cereal?

Wheaties. He appeared on the back of the box in 1934, starting a tradition that has since put hundreds of athletes on the cereal's packaging.

What was the first name of Gehrig's wife, whom he married in 1933?

Eleanor. A Chicagoan who by her own account smoked, played poker and drank bathtub gin, she was the outgoing opposite of her shy husband, and she never remarried.

At which medical center did doctors give Gehrig his diagnosis on his 36th birthday?

Mayo Clinic. A team headed by Dr. Charles Mayo himself took on the case, and six days of tests at the Minnesota clinic ended with the verdict on June 19, 1939.

How did Gehrig's 2,130-game streak end in 1939?

He benched himself, telling manager Joe McCarthy it was for the good of the team. When the Detroit crowd heard the news, it gave the visiting star a standing ovation.

Who replaced Gehrig at first base when his streak ended in 1939?

Babe Dahlgren. He hit a home run in a 22-2 Yankees rout that afternoon, while Gehrig, who had carried the lineup card out himself, looked on from the dugout.

In his farewell speech, Gehrig thanked which rival, 'a team you would give your right arm to beat', for sending a gift?

New York Giants. They were the crosstown rivals his Yankees had beaten in the 1936 and 1937 World Series, yet they sent a present to his appreciation day anyway.

Which New York mayor praised Gehrig as a prototype of sportsmanship and citizenship at his 1939 farewell?

Fiorello La Guardia. When Gehrig died two years later, the mayor ordered flags across New York flown at half-staff.

How did Gehrig keep his consecutive-games streak alive when a back attack struck in 1934?

He batted once, then left. Listed as the leadoff-hitting shortstop for a road game, he singled, gave way to a pinch runner and never took the field.

The engraved silver trophy Gehrig's teammates gave him at his 1939 farewell is now displayed where?

The Baseball Hall of Fame. Catcher Bill Dickey asked Times columnist John Kieran to write the poem, and Gehrig, too weak to hold his gifts that day, prized the trophy for the rest of his life.

Which team beat Gehrig's Yankees in the only World Series he lost?

Cardinals. Gehrig hit .348 in that seven-game defeat in 1926, then won all six of his later World Series, sweeping the same Cardinals two years on.

What public job did Gehrig take in 1940 after retiring?

Parole commissioner. He turned down far better-paid offers for the $5,700-a-year city post and kept working at it until about a month before his death.

In 1999 Gehrig drew the most votes of any player for MLB's All-Century Team, chosen by whom?

Fans. Sixty years after his farewell, the man who had played so long in Babe Ruth's shadow drew more votes than Ruth or anyone else.

How did the ailing Gehrig enter the Hall of Fame in December 1939?

By a special election. Writers voted him in only months after he stopped playing, and he never had a formal induction ceremony.

At 36, Gehrig became the youngest Hall of Famer; who later took that distinction?

Sandy Koufax, elected in 1972 at 36, was five months younger than Gehrig had been. Arthritis in his pitching elbow had forced him to quit at 30.

In 1934, Gehrig and Babe Ruth barnstormed with a team of American stars through which country?

Japan. The tour widened a rift between the two sluggers, who barely spoke again until Ruth threw an arm around Gehrig at his farewell in 1939.

Lou Gehrig Day, June 2, marks his death and what else?

Becoming first baseman. He started there on June 2, 1925, and did not miss a game for nearly 14 years; MLB picked the date in 2021 to raise awareness of his disease.

In his only movie role, the 1938 film Rawhide, Lou Gehrig played himself in what kind of picture?

A Western. Gehrig played a ballplayer who heads out to his sister's ranch, and neurologists later studied the footage and found no sign of his illness in early 1938.

In the 1930s, a Hollywood producer considered casting Lou Gehrig as which movie hero?

Tarzan. Gehrig posed in a leopard-skin outfit, but producer Sol Lesser judged his legs 'more functional than decorative' and gave the part to Olympic decathlon champion Glenn Morris.

Who played Gehrig in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees?

Gary Cooper. By one account he had never swung a bat before taking the part, yet the film, which ends with his version of the farewell speech, earned 11 Oscar nominations.

What nickname did Gehrig's thick legs earn him?

Biscuit Pants. Teammates coined it for his thick legs and low-slung running style, yet those legs carried him to 163 career triples and 15 steals of home.