:Lou Gehrig

Henry Louis Gehrighttps://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-collectibles/others/1941-copy-of-lou-gehrig-s-birth-certificate-from-the-lou-gehrig-collection/a/50011-80435.s was born June 19, 1903, at 1994 Second Avenue in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City;{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/sports/baseball/03gehrig.html |work=The New York Times |first=Ray |last=Robinson |title=Gehrig Remains a Presence in His Former Neighborhood |date=July 3, 2005}} he weighed almost {{convert|14|lb|kg|1}} at birth. He was the second of four children of German immigrants Anna Christina Foch (1881–1954) and Heinrich Wilhelm Gehrig (1867–1946).{{Cite book |title=Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig |last=Eig |first=Jonathan |year=2005 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |pages=3–4 |isbn=978-0-7432-4591-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/luckiestmanlifea00eigj }}{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19410802&id=PeIiAAAAIBAJ&pg=844,2553896 |title=Sport Sandwich |work=Lewiston Evening Journal |last=Thomas |first=Norman S. |date=August 2, 1941 |access-date=July 11, 2017}} Gehrig's father was a sheet-metal worker by trade who was frequently unemployed due to alcoholism and epilepsy, and his mother, a maid, was the main breadwinner and disciplinarian in their family.{{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=Ray |title=Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time |year=1990 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-02857-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/ironhorselougehr00robi_0/page/30 30–31] |url=https://archive.org/details/ironhorselougehr00robi_0/page/30}}

Gehrig's mother Christina was born in 1881 in Wilster, Schleswig-Holstein, a province of pre-World War I Germany, near the Danish border. She emigrated to the United States in 1899. His father Heinrich was born in 1867 in Adelsheim, Baden (now part of Baden-Württemberg), and came to the U.S. in October 1888. Heinrich originally spent some time in Chicago, but later settled in New York, where he met Christina, who was fourteen years his junior. Both partners were Lutheran. They married in 1900.

Gehrig was the only one of the four siblings to live past childhood. His two sisters died at early ages from whooping cough and measles; a brother also died in infancy.Eig: pp. 7, 11. From a young age, Gehrig helped his mother with work, doing tasks such as folding laundry and picking up supplies from local stores.Eig: p. 9 Gehrig spoke German during his childhood,{{citation|last=Sowell|first=Thomas|author-link=Thomas Sowell|title=Migrations and Cultures: A World View|publisher=Basic Books|place=New York|year=1996|page=82|isbn=978-0465045891|quote= ... it may be indicative of how long German cultural ties endured [in the United States] that the German language was spoken in childhood by such disparate 20th-century American figures as famed writer H. L. Mencken, baseball stars Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and by the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler.}} not learning English until the age of five.{{r|menand20200525}} In 1910 he lived with his parents at 2266 Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights.1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York; Roll T624_1026; Page: 26B; Enumeration District: 683; Image: 431. Ten years later the family resided at 2079 8th Avenue in Manhattan.1920;Census Place: Manhattan Assembly District 11, New York; Roll T625_1205; Page: 18A; Enumeration District: 830; Image: 541. He was known as "Lou" so he would not be confused with his identically-named father, who was also known as Henry.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eqXAgAAQBAJ&q=heinrich+ludwig+gehrig&pg=PA6 |title=Lou Gehrig (Revised Edition) – Kevin Viola – Google Books |date=June 19, 1903 |access-date=November 25, 2015|isbn=9781467704007 |last1=Viola |first1=Kevin|publisher=Twenty-First Century Books }}

File:GehrigCU.jpg|left]]

File:LouGehrigColumbia (cropped).jpg, 1922]]

Gehrig attended PS 132 in Washington Heights, then went to Commerce High School, graduating in 1921.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, p. 44.{{cite web |url=http://www.binarywire.com/ps132/background.htm |title=P.S. 132 Historical Perspective |access-date=April 16, 2008 |publisher=NYC Department of Education |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107101312/http://www.binarywire.com/ps132/background.htm |archive-date=January 7, 2009 |url-status=live}} He first garnered national attention for his baseball ability while playing in a game at Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field) in Chicago on June 26, 1920. His Commerce High School team was playing a local team from Lane Tech High School in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 spectators.{{Cite news|title=Commerce Team Wins|date=June 27, 1920|work=The New York Times}} With his team leading 8–6 in the top of the ninth inning, Gehrig hit a grand slam completely out of the major league park, which was an unheard-of feat for a 17-year-old.{{cite book|first=William|last=Kashatus|title=Lou Gehrig: A Biography|location=Westport, Connecticut|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2004}}

Gehrig studied engineering at Columbia University for two years. Finding the schoolwork difficult, he left Columbia to pursue a career in professional baseball.World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago: Field Enterprises, 1958, p. 2897. Gehrig had been recruited to play football at the school, earning a scholarship there,{{r|menand20200525}} later joining the baseball squad.

Before his first semester began, New York Giants manager John McGraw advised Gehrig to play summer professional baseball under an assumed name, Henry Lewis, despite the fact that it could jeopardize his collegiate sports eligibility. After he played a dozen games for the Hartford Senators in the Eastern League, he was discovered and banned from collegiate sports his freshman year.{{cite web|url=http://www.lougehrig.com/about/bio.htm |title=Lou Gehrig: Biography |access-date=December 4, 2012 |publisher=lougehrig.com |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116125538/http://www.lougehrig.com/about/bio.htm |archive-date=January 16, 2013}} In 1922, Gehrig returned to collegiate sports as a fullback for the Columbia Lions football team. Later, in 1923, he played first base and pitched for the Columbia baseball team. At Columbia, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.{{cite web |url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Fall2001/Gehrig.html |title=Lou Gehrig: Columbia Legend and American Hero |access-date=April 16, 2008 |last=Robinson |first=Ray |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411105312/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Fall2001/Gehrig.html |archive-date=April 11, 2008 |url-status=dead}}

On April 18, 1923, the same day the original Yankee Stadium opened for the first time and Babe Ruth inaugurated the new season with a home run against the Boston Red Sox, Columbia pitcher Gehrig struck out seventeen Williams Ephs batters to set a team record, though Columbia lost the game. Only a handful of collegians were at Columbia's South Field that day, but more significant was the presence of New York Yankees scout Paul Krichell, who had been trailing Gehrig for some time. Gehrig's pitching did not particularly impress him; rather, it was Gehrig's powerful left-handed hitting. Krichell observed Gehrig hit some of the longest home runs ever seen on various eastern campuses, including a {{convert|450|ft|m|0|adj=on}} home run on April 28 at South Field, which landed at 116th Street and Broadway.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, pp. 58–59. Scouts saw Gehrig as "the next Babe Ruth."{{r|menand20200525}}

Gehrig signed a contract with the Yankees on April 30.{{cite web|url=http://web.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20150430&content_id=121535552&oid=36019|title=Five things you didn't know about Lou Gehrig|work=yesnetwork.com|access-date=May 1, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502174215/http://web.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20150430&content_id=121535552&oid=36019|archive-date=May 2, 2015|url-status=live}} Gehrig returned to the minor-league Hartford Senators to play parts of two seasons, 1923 and 1924, batting .344 and hitting 61 home runs in 193 games. Except for his games at Hartford, a two-hour car ride away, Gehrig would play his entire baseball life—sandlot, high school, college and professional—with teams based in New York City.

File:1923 Lou Gehrig.png

Gehrig joined the New York Yankees midway through the 1923 season and made his major-league debut as a pinch hitter at age 19 on June 15, 1923. In his first two seasons, Gehrig was mired behind Yankee stalwart Wally Pipp at first base, a two-time American League (AL) home run champion and one of the premier power hitters in Major League Baseball's (MLB) "dead-ball era."{{cite web|url=http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1793&pid=11286|title=The Baseball Biography Project: Wally Pipp|last=Spatz|first=Lyle|publisher=Society for American Baseball Research|access-date=July 26, 2010}} Gehrig saw limited playing time, mostly as a pinch hitter, playing in only twenty-three games and being left off the Yankees' 1923 World Series roster in spite of producing both years (with lofty batting averages of .423 in 1923 and .500 in 1924). On June 1, 1925, the slumping Pipp took himself out of the day's lineup with complaints of a headache and was replaced by Gehrig. Pipp would never get his job with the team back, while Gehrig went on to appear in every game the Yankees played until April 30, 1939.{{cite web | url=https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats2.shtml | title=Consecutive MLB Games Played : The Top 15 | Baseball Almanac }} In 1925, Gehrig batted .295, with twenty home runs and sixty-eight runs batted in (RBIs) over 126 games.{{Cite web|url=https://www.lougehrig.com/biography/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150714011130/http://www.lougehrig.com/about/bio.html|title=Biography |archive-date=July 14, 2015}}

Gehrig, unlike Ruth, was not a gifted position player, so he played first base, often the position for a strong hitter but weaker fielder.{{r|menand20200525}} The 23-year-old Yankee's breakout season came in 1926, when he batted .313 with forty-seven doubles, an AL-leading twenty triples, sixteen home runs and 112 RBIs. In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and four RBIs. The Cardinals won the series four games to three.{{Cite book|title=Lou Gehrig: A Biography (Baseball's All-Time Greatest Hitters) (Hardcover) |last=Kashatus |first=William |year=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-32866-4}}

File:1928 Gehrig Speaker Cobb Ruth.jpg, Ty Cobb, and Babe Ruth in 1928]]

In 1927, Gehrig put together one of the greatest seasons by any batter in history, hitting .373, with 218 hits: 101 singles, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs a then-record 175 RBIs (surpassing Ruth's 168 six years earlier), a .474 on-base percentage and a .765 slugging percentage. His 117 extra-base hits that season are second all-time to Ruth's 119 extra-base hits in 1921 and his 447 total bases are third all-time, after Ruth's 457 total bases in 1921 and Rogers Hornsby's 450 in 1922. Gehrig's production helped the 1927 Yankees to a 110–44 record, the AL pennant (by nineteen games) and a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series.

Although the AL recognized his season by naming him league MVP, Gehrig's accomplishments were overshadowed by Ruth's record-breaking sixty home runs and the overall dominance of the 1927 Yankees, a team often cited as having the greatest lineup of all time, the famed "Murderers' Row."{{cite web |url=http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor2003a.shtml |title=Murderers' Row and Beyond |access-date=April 18, 2008 |work=Baseball Almanac |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511203818/http://baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor2003a.shtml |archive-date=May 11, 2008 |url-status=dead }}

In 1929, the Yankees debuted wearing numbers on their uniforms.[https://www.yankeenumbers.com/#:~:text=The%20New%20York%20Yankees%20were,even%20past%20a%20few%20games. yankeesnumbers.com] Gehrig wore number 4 because he hit behind Ruth, who batted third in the lineup.{{Cite news|url=https://baseballhall.org/hof/gehrig-lou|title=Lou Gehrig|work=Baseball Hall of Fame|access-date=October 24, 2017|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171024205405/https://baseballhall.org/hof/gehrig-lou|archive-date=October 24, 2017|url-status=live}}

In 1932, Gehrig became the first player in the 20th century to hit four home runs in a game, accomplishing the feat on June 3 against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park.{{cite web|title=Box Score of Four Home Run Game by Lou Gehrig|year=2000|publisher=Baseball Almanac|url=http://www.baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/06031932.shtml|access-date=August 5, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514111302/http://baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/06031932.shtml|archive-date=May 14, 2008|url-status=dead}} He narrowly missed hitting a fifth home run when Athletics center fielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of another fly ball at the center-field fence. Following the game, Yankees manager Joe McCarthy told him, "Well, Lou, nobody can take today away from you." On the same day, however, John McGraw announced his retirement after thirty years of managing the New York Giants, so McGraw, not Gehrig, got the main headlines in the city's sports sections the next day.Baseball's Unforgettable Games (1960), by Joe Reichler and Ben Olan Gehrig's four home run game was only the third in MLB history to that point, and the first since Ed Delahanty did it in 1896.

On August 17, 1933, Gehrig played in his 1,308th consecutive game against the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park, which broke the longest consecutive games-played streak held by Everett Scott. Scott attended as a guest of the Browns.{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=s_4nAAAAIBAJ&pg=3568,3169744&dq=everett-scott|title=Lou Sets New Playing Mark: Game Today to Break 1307 Consecutive Mark Set by Everett Scott|first=Hugh S. Jr.|last=Fullerton|page=8|date=August 17, 1933|work=The Southeast Missourian|access-date=January 16, 2016}}

Gehrig lived with his parents until 1933, when he was thirty years old. His mother ruined all of Gehrig's romances until he met Eleanor Twitchell (1904–1984), the daughter of Chicago Parks Commissioner Frank Twitchell,{{cite web|last1=Krieger|first1=Tara|title=Eleanor Gehrig|url=http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/8bb96875|publisher=Society for American Baseball Research|access-date=April 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326154818/http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/8bb96875|archive-date=March 26, 2017|url-status=live}} in 1932; they began dating the next year{{Cite magazine |last=Menand |first=Louis |date=May 25, 2020 |title=How Baseball Players Became Celebrities |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/how-baseball-players-became-celebrities |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en |access-date=May 26, 2020}} and married in September. She helped Gehrig leave his mother's influence and hired Christy Walsh, Ruth's sports agent; Walsh helped Gehrig become the first athlete on Wheaties boxes.{{r|menand20200525}}

On April 30, 1934, Gehrig hit his 300th home run versus the Washington Senators, becoming the second player to reach the milestone after Ruth.{{cite news|title=Ruffing, On Comeback Road, Wins Game With Smash to Bleachers in Final Inning|first=Jack|last=Cuddy|work=The Indianapolis Times|volume=45|number=304|page=15|date=May 1, 1934}} Gehrig won the AL Triple Crown in 1934, leading the league with 49 home runs, 166 RBIs and a .363 batting average.

File:Lou Gehrig and Hank Greenberg 1935.jpg in 1935]]

In a 1936 World Series cover story about Gehrig and Carl Hubbell, Time magazine proclaimed Gehrig "the game's No. 1 batsman," who "takes boyish pride in banging a baseball as far, and running around the bases as quickly, as possible."{{Cite magazine|access-date=December 17, 2007|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770376,00.html|title=Equinoctial Climax|date=October 5, 1936|magazine=Time|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071226234907/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770376,00.html|archive-date=December 26, 2007|url-status=dead}} Also in 1936, at the urging of his wife, Gehrig agreed to hire Ruth's publicity agent, who, in turn, persuaded him to audition for the role of Tarzan in the independent film Tarzan's Revenge. Gehrig only got as far, though, as posing for a widely distributed, and embarrassing, photo of himself in a leopard-spotted costume. When Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs spotted the outfit, he telegrammed Gehrig, "I want to congratulate you on being a swell first baseman."{{cite news|last=Beschloss|first=Michael|title=When the Iron Horse (Almost) Played Tarzan|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/upshot/when-the-iron-horse-almost-played-tarzan.html|access-date=April 26, 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 25, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426024635/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/upshot/when-the-iron-horse-almost-played-tarzan.html|archive-date=April 26, 2014|url-status=live}} Producer Sol Lesser was unimpressed with Gehrig's legs, calling them "more functional than decorative," and passed on him for the role which eventually went to the 1936 Olympic decathlon gold medalist Glenn Morris.{{Cite web|url=https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0619.html|title = ERBzine 0619: Tarzan's Revenge}}

On June 1, 1925, Gehrig entered the game as a pinch hitter, substituting for shortstop Paul "Pee Wee" Wanninger. The next day, June 2, Yankee manager Miller Huggins started Gehrig in place of regular first baseman Wally Pipp, who had a headache. Pipp was in a slump, as was the team, so Huggins made several lineup changes in an attempt to boost their performance, replacing Pipp, Aaron Ward and Wally Schang.{{cite magazine|url=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1066131/1/index.htm |title=A Pipp of a Legend: The Man Who Was Benched in Favor of Iron-Horse Lou |first=Bruce |last=Anderson |date=June 29, 1987 |magazine=Sports Illustrated |access-date=April 18, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502044747/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1066131/1/index.htm |archive-date=May 2, 2015 }} Fourteen years later, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games, shattering the previous record of 1,307 along the way.

File:1937 all stars crop FINAL2.jpg, from left to right Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. All seven would be elected to the Hall of Fame.]]

During the streak, sportswriters in 1931 nicknamed Gehrig "the Iron Horse."{{r|menand20200525}} In a few instances, Gehrig managed to keep the streak intact through pinch-hitting appearances and fortuitous timing; in others, the streak continued despite injuries. For example:

• On April 23, 1933, a pitch by Earl Whitehill of the Washington Senators struck Gehrig in the head. Although almost knocked unconscious, Gehrig remained in the game.
• On June 14, 1933, Gehrig was ejected from a game, along with manager Joe McCarthy, but he had already been at bat.
• In a June 1934 exhibition game, Gehrig was hit by a pitch just above the right eye and was knocked unconscious. According to news reports, he was out for five minutes. Batting helmets were not commonly used until the 1940s. He left the game but was in the lineup the next day.{{cite web |last=Schwarz |first=Alan |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/sports/18gehrig.html |title=Study Says Brain Trauma Can Mimic A.L.S. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301164517/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/sports/18gehrig.html |archive-date=March 1, 2017 |work=The New York Times |date=December 4, 2012}}
• On July 13, 1934, Gehrig suffered a "lumbago attack" and had to be assisted off the field. In the next day's away game, he was listed in the lineup as "shortstop", batting lead-off. In his first and only plate appearance, he singled and was promptly replaced by a pinch runner to rest his throbbing back, never taking the field. A&E's Biography speculated that this illness, which he also described as "a cold in his back," might have been the first symptom of the disease which ultimately led to his retirement.{{Cite journal

| last = Davis |first=J. H.

| year = 1988

| title = Fixing the Standard of Care: Motivated Athletes and Medical Malpractice

| journal = American Journal of Trial Advocacy

| volume = 12

| page = 215

| url = https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=info:tFte_3bGN7AJ:scholar.google.com/&output=viewport

| access-date = April 17, 2008

}}

In addition, x-rays taken late in his life disclosed that Gehrig had sustained several fractures during his playing career, although he remained in the lineup despite those previously undisclosed injuries.{{Citation|title=Mike Tilden English 15 Gregg Rogers 24 October 2002 September 11 Defines "American Hero" |url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/w/mwt131/frosh/engl015/definition%20paper.pdf |access-date=April 17, 2008 }}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} However, the streak was helped when Yankees general manager Ed Barrow postponed a game as a rainout on a day when Gehrig was sick with the flu, though it was not raining.{{Cite news|url=https://nypost.com/2010/02/28/the-baseball-codes|title=The Baseball Codes|last=Getlen|first=Larry|date=February 28, 2010|work=New York Post|access-date=February 28, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012211943/http://nypost.com/2010/02/28/the-baseball-codes/|archive-date=October 12, 2013|url-status=live}} He continued the streak despite his wife attempting to persuade him to end it at 1,999 games by acting sick. He then had beaten the previous record by nearly 700 games.

Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games endured for fifty-six years until Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it on September 6, 1995; Ripken finished with 2,632 consecutive games.{{Cite journal

| last1 = Greenberg |first1=D. A.

|last2=Jin |first2=K.

| year = 2004

| title = VEGF and ALS: the luckiest growth factor?

| journal = Trends in Molecular Medicine

| volume = 10

| issue = 1

| pages = 1–3

| doi = 10.1016/j.molmed.2003.11.006

| pmid = 14720577

}}

{{-}}

Despite not being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) until June 1939, Gehrig began experiencing symptoms as early as midway through the 1938 season. Although his performance in the second half of the season was slightly better than in the first half, Gehrig reported physical changes at the midway point. At the end of that season, he said, "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." Although his final 1938 statistics were above average (.295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits, .523 slugging percentage, 689 plate appearances with only 75 strikeouts, and 29 home runs), boosted by a hot August, they were significantly down from his 1937 season, in which he batted .351 and slugged .643. He hit his last home run on September 27, 1938.{{cite web |url=https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/lou-gehrig-s-final-years |title=Gehrig's 'worst' season actually was his best |work=MLB.com |last=Castrovince |first=Anthony |date=June 2, 2021 |access-date=March 24, 2023}} In the 1938 World Series, he had four hits in fourteen at-bats (.286 batting average), all singles.{{Cite journal|author=Malik, N. |year=2000 |title=Lou Gehrig's Disease: A Closer Look at the Genetic Basis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis |journal=Pediatrics |volume=3 |issue=3 |url=http://www.geriatricsandaging.com/FMPro?-DB=GA_articles_database&-Find=&-Format=record_detail.htm&Name=Lou%20Gehrig%27s%20Disease:%20A%20Closer%20Look%20at%20the%20Genetic%20Basis%20of%20Amyotrophic%20Lateral%20Sclerosis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421164915/http://www.geriatricsandaging.com/FMPro?-DB=GA_articles_database&-Find=&-Format=record_detail.htm&Name=Lou%20Gehrig%27s%20Disease:%20A%20Closer%20Look%20at%20the%20Genetic%20Basis%20of%20Amyotrophic%20Lateral%20Sclerosis |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 21, 2021 |access-date=April 17, 2008 }}

When the Yankees began their 1939 spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, Gehrig clearly no longer possessed his once-formidable power. Even his base running was affected, and at one point he collapsed at Al Lang Stadium, then the Yankees' spring training park.{{cite news|first=Bob |last=Chick |title=Spring Training In Tampa – The Final Out |date=February 24, 2008 |newspaper=The Tampa Tribune }} By the end of spring training, he had not hit a home run.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, p. 248. Throughout his career, Gehrig was considered an excellent base runner, but as the 1939 season got under way, his coordination and speed had deteriorated significantly.{{Cite journal

| last = Walling |first=A. D.

| year = 1999

| title = Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Lou Gehrig's disease.

| journal = American Family Physician

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| pages = 1489–96

| pmid = 10193591

}}

By the end of April, eight games into the season, Gehrig's statistics were the worst of his career, with one RBI and a .143 batting average. Fans and the press openly speculated on his abrupt decline. James Kahn, a reporter who wrote often about Gehrig, said in one article:

{{Blockquote|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. I have seen ballplayers 'go' overnight, as Gehrig seems to have done. But they were simply washed up as ballplayers. It's something deeper than that in this case, though. I have watched him very closely and this is what I have seen: I have seen him time a ball perfectly, swing on it as hard as he can, meet it squarely – and drive a soft, looping fly over the infield. In other words, 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.lougehrig.com/about/quotesabout.htm |title=Quotes about Lou Gehrig |access-date=April 16, 2008 |work=lougehrig.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029174125/http://www.lougehrig.com/about/quotesabout.htm |archive-date=October 29, 2012 }}}}

Gehrig was indeed meeting the ball, with only one strikeout in 28 at-bats. However, with Gehrig hitless in five of the eight games, McCarthy found himself resisting pressure from Yankee management to switch his slumping player to a part-time role. Things came to a head when Gehrig struggled to make a routine put-out at first base. The pitcher, Johnny Murphy, had to wait for Gehrig to drag himself over to the bag so he could field the throw. Murphy said, "Nice play, Lou." Gehrig's later assessment was very dismissive. "That was the simplest play you could ever make in baseball, and I knew then: There was something wrong with me."{{Citation|first=Max |last=Carey|title=SportsCentury Greatest Athletes #34: Lou Gehrig|date=April 5, 2018|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlmhiroSgXY&t=16m57s| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/TlmhiroSgXY| archive-date=October 30, 2021|access-date=June 22, 2019}}{{cbignore}}

On April 30, Gehrig went hitless against the Washington Senators. He had just played his 2,130th consecutive major league game. On May 2, the next game after a day off, Gehrig approached McCarthy before the game in Detroit against the Tigers and said, "I'm benching myself, Joe," telling the Yankees' skipper that he was doing so "for the good of the team."Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, pp. 251–253. McCarthy acquiesced, putting Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren in at first base, and also said that whenever Gehrig felt he could play again, the position was his. Gehrig, as Yankee captain, himself took the lineup card out to the shocked umpires before the game, ending the fourteen-year streak. Before the game began, the Briggs Stadium announcer told the 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 Tigers' fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes. Coincidentally, among those attending the game was Wally Pipp, whom Gehrig had replaced at first base 2,130 games previously. A wire-service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation's newspapers. He stayed with the Yankees as team captain for the rest of the season but never played in a major-league game again.

As Gehrig's debilitation became steadily worse, his wife called the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her call was transferred to Charles William Mayo, who had been following Gehrig's career and his mysterious loss of strength. Mayo told Gehrig's wife to bring him to the clinic as soon as possible.

Gehrig flew alone to Rochester from Chicago, where the Yankees were playing at the time, and arrived at the Mayo Clinic on June 13, 1939. After six days of extensive testing, doctors confirmed the diagnosis of ALS on June 19, which was Gehrig's 36th birthday.{{Cite book |title=Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig |last=Eig |first=Jonathan |year=2005 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7432-4591-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/luckiestmanlifea00eigj}} The prognosis was grim: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking and a life expectancy less than three years, although no impairment of mental functions would occur. Gehrig's wife was told that the cause of the disease was unknown, but that it was painless, not contagious and cruel; the motor function of the central nervous system is destroyed, but the mind remains fully aware until the end.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, p. 258.{{Cite journal |author=Cardoso, R.M.F. |author2=Thayer, M.M. |author3=Didonato, M. |author4=Lo, T.P. |author5=Bruns, C.K. |author-link6=Elizabeth D. Getzoff |author6=Getzoff, E.D. |author7= Tainer, J.A. |year=2002 |title=Insights into Lou Gehrig's Disease from the Structure and Instability of the A4V Mutant of Human Cu, Zn Superoxide Dismutase |journal=Journal of Molecular Biology |volume=324 |issue=2 |pages=247–256 |doi=10.1016/S0022-2836(02)01090-2 |pmid=12441104}} Gehrig often wrote letters to his wife, and one such note written shortly after the diagnosis said in part:

{{blockquote|The bad news is lateral sclerosis, in our language "creeping" paralysis. There isn't any cure ... there are very few of these cases. It is probably caused by some germ ... Never heard of transmitting it to mates ... There is a 50–50 chance of keeping me as I am. I may need a cane in 10 or 15 years. Playing is out of the question ...{{cite web |url=http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id3.html |title=More About His ALS Battle |access-date=April 16, 2008 |last=Kaden |first=S. |year=2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717103127/http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id3.html |archive-date=July 17, 2011 |url-status=live}}}}

Following Gehrig's diagnosis, he briefly rejoined the Yankees in Washington, D.C. As his train pulled into Union Station, he was greeted by a group of Boy Scouts happily waving and wishing him luck. Gehrig waved back, but he leaned forward to his companion, Rutherford "Rud" Rennie of the New York Herald Tribune, and said, "They're wishing me luck—and I'm dying."{{cite news|last1=Anderson|first1=Dave|title=Commemorating the Iron Horse's Iron Will|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/sports/sports-of-the-times-commemorating-the-iron-horse-s-iron-will.html|date=July 2, 1989|page=2S|access-date=August 1, 2016|work=The New York Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190325154152/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/sports/sports-of-the-times-commemorating-the-iron-horse-s-iron-will.html|archive-date=March 25, 2019|url-status=live}}

Although Gehrig's symptoms were consistent with ALS and he did not experience the wild mood swings and eruptions of uncontrolled violence that define chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), an article in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology{{cite journal |vauthors=McKee, AC , Gavett, Brandon E, Stern, Robert A, Nowinski, Christopher, Cantu, Robert C |title=TDP-43 Proteinopathy and Motor Neuron Disease in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. |journal=Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology |date=September 2010 |volume=69 |issue=9 |pages=918–929 |doi=10.1097/NEN.0b013e3181ee7d85|pmid=20720505 |pmc=2951281 |s2cid=9767847}} suggested the possibility that some ALS-related illnesses diagnosed in Gehrig and other athletes may have been CTE, catalyzed by repeated concussions and other brain trauma.{{cite news |title=Study Says Brain Trauma Can Mimic A.L.S. |first=Alan |last=Schwarz |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/sports/18gehrig.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=August 17, 2010 |access-date=November 4, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225211914/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/sports/18gehrig.html |archive-date=December 25, 2016 |url-status=live}}{{cite news |title=Study Finds Trauma May Mimic A.L.S. |first=David |last=Frank |url=https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/1247468643950/study-finds-trauma-may-mimic-a-l-s.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=August 17, 2010 |access-date=November 4, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203022519/https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/1247468643950/study-finds-trauma-may-mimic-a-l-s.html |archive-date=February 3, 2017 |url-status=live}} In 2012, Minnesota state representative Phyllis Kahn sought to change the law protecting the privacy of Gehrig's medical records, which are held by the Mayo Clinic, in an effort to determine if a connection could exist between his illness and the concussion-related trauma that he had received during his career. Gehrig played fullback on the football team at Columbia University, and had a long history of concussions, including several incidents in which he lost consciousness. He played through these injuries.{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |url=http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/172581481.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue |title=What's to learn from Lou Gehrig's death? |work=Star Tribune |date=October 9, 2012 |access-date=March 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140325174018/http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/172581481.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue |archive-date=March 25, 2014 |url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=Did Lou Gehrig Actually Have Lou Gehrig's Disease? Brain Trauma, ALS, And CTE With Motor Neuron Disease |url=https://www.juliestamm.com/blog/brain-trauma-als-and-cte-with-motor-neuron-disease |date=March 22, 2021 |website=juliestamm.com |access-date=March 24, 2023}}

Gehrig played prior to the advent of batting helmets. To diagnose CTE would require autopsy results; none was conducted on Gehrig before his remains were cremated following his open-casket wake. Multiple physicians have argued that examining records alone would be fruitless.{{cite web |last1=Markel |first1=Howard |title=Did Lou Gehrig actually die of 'Lou Gehrig's disease'? |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/did-lou-gehrig-actually-die-of-lou-gehrigs-disease |website=PBS NewsHour |publisher=PBS |language=en-us |date=June 17, 2016}}

{{MLBBioRet

|Image = LouGehrig4.jpg

|Name = Lou Gehrig

|Number = 4

|Team = New York Yankees

|Year = 1939

|}}

File:Babe Ruth hugging Lou Gehrig (1939).jpg at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, shortly after Gehrig's retirement. Within a decade, a similar testimonial would honor Ruth, who died from cancer in 1948.]]

Staff at the Mayo Clinic released their ALS diagnosis to the public on June 19, 1939. Two days later, the Yankees announced Gehrig's retirement, with an immediate public push to honor him.{{cite news|title='Iron-Man' Gehrig Weeps as 61,808 Pay Tribute to Him|newspaper=St. Louis Star-Times|date=July 5, 1939|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62394503/st-louis-star-and-times-751939/|agency=UP|via=Newspapers.com}}{{open access}} In its coverage the following day, The New York Times wrote that the ceremony was "perhaps as colorful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field [as] 61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell."{{cite news |last=Drebinger |first=John |date=July 5, 1939 |title=61,808 Fans Roar Tribute to Gehrig |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/07/05/112698231.pdf |work=The New York Times |access-date=September 6, 2020}}{{subscription required}} Dignitaries and members of the Murderers' Row lineup attended the ceremonies and praised Gehrig. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia called Gehrig the "perfect prototype of the best sportsmanship and citizenship" and Postmaster General James Farley concluded his speech by predicting, "Your name will live long in baseball and wherever the game is played they will point with pride and satisfaction to your record."

Yankees manager Joe McCarthy then spoke of Gehrig, a close friend. Struggling to control his emotions, McCarthy described Gehrig as "the finest example of a ballplayer, sportsman and citizen that baseball has ever known." He turned tearfully to Gehrig and said, "Lou, what else can I say except that it was a sad day in the life of everybody who knew you when you came into my hotel room that day in Detroit and told me you were quitting as a ballplayer because you felt yourself a hindrance to the team. My God, man, you were never that."{{Cite journal |author=Belli, R.F. |author2=Schuman, H. |year=1996 |title=The complexity of ignorance |journal=Qualitative Sociology |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=423–430 |doi=10.1007/BF02393279 |s2cid=144220498}}

The Yankees retired Gehrig's uniform number 4, making him the first player in MLB history to be accorded that honor.{{Cite book |author=Greenberger, R. |year=2003 |title=Lou Gehrig |publisher=The Rosen Publishing Group}} Gehrig was given many gifts, commemorative plaques and trophies. Some were presented by VIPs and others came from the stadium's groundskeepers and janitorial staff. As Gehrig was handed the gifts, he would immediately place them on the ground, as he no longer had the arm strength to hold them. The Yankees presented Gehrig with a silver trophy bearing all of their engraved signatures. Inscribed on the front was a poem written by Times writer John Kieran at the players' request.{{cite web|url=http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id12.html|title=The Day He Retired|work=tripod.com|access-date=May 1, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150508062131/http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id12.html|archive-date=May 8, 2015|url-status=live}}

The trophy became one of Gehrig's most prized possessions.[http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id12.html The Day He Retired] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060410010147/http://moregehrig.tripod.com/id12.html |date=April 10, 2006 }}, S. Kaden, 2003 It is currently on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

{{anchor|"The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech}}

On July 4, 1939, Gehrig delivered what has been called "baseball's Gettysburg Address" to a sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium in between a doubleheader against the Washington Senators.{{cite web |url=http://www.lougehrig.com/about/farewell.html |title=Farewell Address |access-date=December 12, 2013 |date=July 4, 1939 |publisher=lougehrig.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140205121101/http://www.lougehrig.com/about/farewell.html |archive-date=February 5, 2014 |url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/11159148/mlb-lou-gehrig-farewell-speech-75-years-later|title=An awful lot to live for|first=Steve|last=Wulf|date=July 4, 2014|access-date=July 14, 2014|publisher=ESPN|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714033529/http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11159148/mlb-lou-gehrig-farewell-speech-75-years-later|archive-date=July 14, 2014|url-status=live}}{{cite magazine|url=https://www.si.com/mlb/2009/07/04/gehrig-text|title=Full Text of Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech|magazine=Sports Illustrated|access-date=July 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714230319/http://www.si.com/mlb/2009/07/04/gehrig-text|archive-date=July 14, 2014|url-status=live}} Having always avoided public attention, Gehrig did not want to speak, but the crowd chanted for him and he had memorized some sentences beforehand.{{r|menand20200525}}

{{blockquote|Fans, for the past two weeks, you've been reading about a bad break.[you have been reading about the bad break I got] [pause] Today[Yet today] I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the[this] earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

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?[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. — Thank you.}}

Only four sentences of the speech exist in recorded form; complete versions of the speech are assembled from newspaper accounts.{{r|menand20200525}}

{{blockquote|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. (cut) 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? (cut) ... that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNLKPaThYkE|title=Gehrig delivers his famous speech at Yankee Stadium|date=July 1, 2014|via=YouTube|access-date=May 1, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150122153719/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNLKPaThYkE|archive-date=January 22, 2015|url-status=live}}}}

The crowd stood and applauded for almost two minutes. Gehrig's sometimes-estranged former teammate Babe Ruth hugged him as a band played "I Love You Truly" and the crowd chanted, "We love you, Lou!" The Times account the following day called the moment "one of the most touching scenes ever witnessed on a ball field" that made even hard-boiled reporters "swallow hard."

Source:[https://baseball-reference.com/players/g/gehrilo01.shtml][https://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/G/Pgehrl101.htm]

Gehrig was a productive hitter in the postseason. He won 6 out the 7 World Series he participated in. In 34 World Series games over 7 World Series (1926, '27, '28, '32, '36, '37, and '38) he batted .361 (43-for-119) with 8 doubles, 3 triples, 10 home runs, 35 RBI, 26 walks, .483 on-base percentage, .731 slugging percentage, and 1.214 on-base plus slugging percentage.

File:Lou Gehrig wake 1941.jpg in Riverdale, Bronx, June 4, 1941]]

File:Lou Gehrig best 800.jpg (the year of his birth was erroneously inscribed as "1905")]]

Gehrig played his last game for the Yankees on April 30, 1939.{{Cite web|url=https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1939/Igehrl1010171939.htm|title=The 1939 NY A Regular Season Batting Log for Lou Gehrig|website=www.retrosheet.org}} On July 11 of that year, he appeared at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium as the AL team captain, officially on the roster as a reserve player, exchanging lineup cards prior to the game.{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Au4FpvIdc |title=Radio broadcast of 1939 MLB All-Star Game on YouTube |date=December 10, 2016 |via=YouTube |access-date=January 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301173737/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Au4FpvIdc |archive-date=March 1, 2020 |url-status=live }}Baseball Reference | [https://www.baseball-reference.com/allstar/1939-allstar-game.shtml 1939 All-Star Game Box Score] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190127094308/https://www.baseball-reference.com/allstar/1939-allstar-game.shtml |date=January 27, 2019}}

Following his retirement from baseball, Gehrig wrote, "Don't think I am depressed or pessimistic about my condition at present." Struggling against his ever-worsening physical condition, he added, "I intend to hold on as long as possible and then if the inevitable comes, I will accept it philosophically and hope for the best. That's all we can do."

In October 1939, Gehrig accepted Mayor La Guardia's appointment to a ten-year term as a New York City parole commissioner (Gehrig had moved from New Rochelle to Riverdale to satisfy a residency requirement for the job) and was sworn into office on January 2, 1940. The Parole Commission commended Gehrig for his "firm belief in parole, properly administered", stating that he "indicated he accepted the parole post because it represented an opportunity for public service. He had rejected other job offers—including lucrative speaking and guest appearance opportunities—worth far more financially than the $5,700 a year commissionership." Gehrig visited New York's correctional facilities but insisted that the visits not be covered by news media.In appointing Gehrig as a parole commissioner, LaGuardia said, "I believe he will be not only a capable, intelligent commissioner but that he will be an inspiration and a hope to many of the younger boys who have gotten into trouble. Surely the misfortune of some of the young men will compare as something trivial with what Mr. Gehrig has so cheerfully and courageously faced." Gehrig continued to go regularly to his City Hall office until a month before his death. (reference: [http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycparole/parolelist.html New York City Parole Commission history] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060220160604/http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycparole/parolelist.html |date=February 20, 2006}}) He was often helped by his wife Eleanor, who would guide his hand when he had to sign official documents. When Gehrig's deteriorating physical condition made it impossible for him to continue, he quietly resigned from the position about a month before his death.{{Cite journal |author=Cleveland, D.W. |author2=Rothstein, J.D. |year=2001 |title=From Charcot to Lou Gehrig: deciphering selective motor neuron death in ALS |journal=Nature Reviews Neuroscience |volume=2 |issue=11 |pages=806–19 |url=http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/teaching/C7101/From_Charcot_to_Lou_g.pdf |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20080529100048/http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/teaching/C7101/From_Charcot_to_Lou_g.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 29, 2008 |access-date=April 17, 2008 |doi=10.1038/35097565 |pmid=11715057|s2cid=2050462}}

At 10:10{{nbsp}}p.m. on June 2, 1941, seventeen days before his 38th birthday, Gehrig died at his home at 5204 Delafield Avenue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx."Gehrig, 'Iron Man' of Baseball, Dies at the age of 37", The New York Times, June 3, 1941.Yardley, Jonathan. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19187-2005Apr1/ "Book World Live: Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig"]{{dead link|date=April 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, The Washington Post, April 5, 2005. Accessed May 3, 2008. "On June 2, 1941, just days short of his 38th birthday, Henry Louis Gehrig died at his house in the pleasant New York City neighborhood of Riverdale." Upon hearing the news, Babe Ruth and his wife Claire went to the Gehrig residence to console Gehrig's wife Eleanor. Mayor La Guardia ordered flags in New York to be flown at half-staff, and MLB ballparks around the nation did likewise.Time magazine, June 16, 1941.

Thousands viewed Gehrig's body at the Church of the Divine Paternity. Ruth cut in line ahead of everyone and wept in front of the casket.{{r|menand20200525}} Following the funeral across the street from his house at Christ Episcopal Church of Riverdale, Gehrig's remains were cremated on June 4 at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, {{convert|21|mi}} north of Yankee Stadium in suburban Westchester County. Gehrig's ashes were locked into a crypt in the stone monument marking his grave.Sandomir, Richard. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/sports/baseball/when-cooperstown-almost-changed-from-museum-to-mausoleum.html "When Cooperstown Almost Changed From Museum to Mausoleum"]. New York Times, July 29, 2017. Gehrig and Ed Barrow are interred in the same section of the cemetery, which is next door to Gate of Heaven, where the graves of Ruth and Billy Martin lie in Section 25.{{Cite journal |author=Innes, A.M. |author2=Chudley, A.E. |year=1999 |title=Genetic landmarks through philately – Henry Louis'Lou' Gehrig and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis |journal=Clinical Genetics |volume=56 |issue=6 |pages=425–27 |doi=10.1034/j.1399-0004.1999.560603.x |pmid=10665660|s2cid=44335967|doi-access=free }}

Eleanor never remarried and was quoted as saying, "I had the best of it. I would not have traded two minutes of my life with that man for forty years with another." She dedicated the remainder of her life to supporting ALS research. She died forty-three years after Gehrig on her 80th birthday, March 6, 1984, and was interred with him in Kensico Cemetery.

File:Lou Gehrig Way 2010.JPG: He lived in a modest home at 9 Meadow Lane in the Residents Park section near the College of New Rochelle.]]

Despite playing in the shadow of Ruth for two-thirds of his career, Gehrig was one of the highest run producers in baseball history; he had 509 RBIs during a three-season stretch (1930–32). Only two other players, Jimmie Foxx with 507 and Hank Greenberg with 503, have surpassed 500 RBIs in any three seasons; their totals were not consecutive. (Babe Ruth had 498.){{cite web |url=https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml |title=MVP Baseball Players |access-date=April 18, 2008 |work=Baseball Reference |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109123655/http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml |archive-date=January 9, 2010 |url-status=live }} Playing 14 complete seasons, Gehrig had 13 consecutive seasons with 100 or more RBIs (a major-league record shared with Foxx and tied in 2010 by Alex Rodriguez).

Gehrig had six seasons where he batted .350 or better (with a high of .379 in 1930), plus a seventh season at .349. Gehrig led the American League in runs scored four times, home runs three times, and RBIs five times. His 185 RBIs in 1931 remain the AL record as of {{currentyear}} and rank second all-time to Hack Wilson's 191 in 1930. On the single-season RBI list, Gehrig ranks second, fifth (175) and sixth (174), with four additional seasons of over 150 RBIs.

Gehrig also holds the baseball record for most seasons with 400 total bases or more, accomplishing this feat five times in his career.{{cite web |url=http://mlb.mlb.com/nyy/history/gehrig.jsp |title=Gehrig's shining legacy of courage |access-date=April 18, 2008 |last=Newman |first=Mark |website=MLB.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416033029/http://mlb.mlb.com/nyy/history/gehrig.jsp |archive-date=April 16, 2008 |url-status=live }} He batted fourth in the lineup behind Ruth, making intentionally walking Ruth counterproductive for opposing pitchers.

Lefty Grove, one of the AL's best pitchers during Gehrig's playing days who often threw the ball at batters, refrained from doing so to Gehrig. "You can never tell what that big fellow will do if you get him mad at you," Grove explained.{{cite book|last=Russo|first=Frank|title=The Cooperstown Chronicles: Baseball's Colorful Characters, Unusual Lives, and Strange Demises|location=New York|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2014|isbn=978-1-4422-3639-4|page=146}}

Unlike Ruth, Gehrig had the physique of a power hitter. Ruth usually hit home runs as high fly balls, while Gehrig's were line drives.{{r|menand20200525}} During the ten seasons (1925–1934) in which Gehrig and Ruth were teammates and next to each other in the batting order and played a majority of the games, Gehrig had more home runs than Ruth only once, in 1934 (Ruth's last year with the Yankees, as a 39-year-old), when he hit 49 to Ruth's 22 (Ruth played 125 games that year, and a handful in 1935 before retiring). They tied at 46 in 1931. Ruth had 424 home runs compared to Gehrig's 347; however, Gehrig outpaced Ruth in RBIs, 1,436 to 1,316. Gehrig had a .343 batting average, compared to .338 for Ruth, during this period.{{cite web |url=https://baseballbiography.com/lou-gehrig-1903 |title=Lou Gehrig |access-date=April 18, 2008 }}

{{quote box |width= 18em |border= 4px |align=left|bgcolor= #FAF0E6 |qalign= centre | title="Line-Up for Yesterday"|quote=

G is for Gehrig,

The Pride of the Stadium;

His record pure gold,

His courage, pure radium.

|source= — Ogden Nash, SPORT (January 1949){{cite web|title=Line-Up For Yesterday by Ogden Nash|url=http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_line.shtml|access-date=January 23, 2008|work=Baseball Almanac|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171028091707/http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_line.shtml|archive-date=October 28, 2017|url-status=dead}}}}

File:HOF Gehrig Lou plaque.jpg

During a winter meeting of the Baseball Writers' Association on December 7, 1939, Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in a special election related to his illness.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, p. 266. At age 36, he was the youngest player to be so honored (since surpassed by Sandy Koufax, who was five months younger than Gehrig at the time of his election in 1972).{{cite web|url=http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/detail.jsp?playerId=114680 |title=Henry Louis Gehrig |access-date=April 18, 2008 |work=National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080403155758/http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/detail.jsp?playerId=114680| archive-date = April 3, 2008}}

Gehrig never had a formal induction ceremony. On July 28, 2013, he and eleven other deceased ballplayers, including Rogers Hornsby, received a special tribute during the induction ceremony, held during "Hall of Fame Induction Weekend" in Cooperstown, New York.National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: "2013 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend July 26–29", Induction Ceremony, Lou Gehrig tribute [http://www.baseballhall.org/hofweekend] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621055030/http://baseballhall.org/hofweekend|date=June 21, 2013}} Retrieved June 24, 2013

The Yankees dedicated a monument to Gehrig in center field at Yankee Stadium on July 6, 1941; the shrine lauded him as, "A man, a gentleman and a great ballplayer whose amazing record of 2,130 consecutive games should stand for all time." Gehrig's monument joined the one placed there in 1932 to Miller Huggins, which would eventually be followed by Babe Ruth's in 1949.

Gehrig's birthplace in Manhattan at 1994 Second Avenue, near E. 103rd Street, is memorialized with a plaque marking the site, as is another early residence on 309 E. 94th Street, near Second Avenue. Gehrig died in a white house at 5204 Delafield Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The house still stands today on the east side of the Henry Hudson Parkway and is likewise marked by a plaque.{{Failed verification|date=May 2023}}

The Lou Gehrig Memorial Award is given annually to an MLB player who best exhibits the character and integrity of Gehrig, off and on the field.{{cite web|title=The Lou Gehrig Memorial Award|url=http://www.phideltatheta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27|access-date=November 6, 2012|publisher=Phi Delta Theta International Site}} The award was created by the Phi Delta Theta fraternity in honor of Gehrig, who was a member of the fraternity at Columbia University. It was first presented in 1955, fourteen years after Gehrig's death. The award's purpose is to recognize a player's exemplary contributions in "both his community and philanthropy." The bestowal of the award is overseen by the headquarters of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity in Oxford, Ohio,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ceeU7xSLw5kC&q=lou+gehrig+memorial+award&pg=PA518|title=The Dickson Baseball Dictionary|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|date=June 13, 2011|last=Dickson|first=Paul|pages=518|access-date=November 9, 2012|isbn=9780393073492}} and the name of each winner is inscribed onto the Lou Gehrig Award plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

The ALS treatment and research center at his alma mater, Columbia University, is named The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center.{{cite web|title=Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center|date=April 22, 2019|url=https://www.alscenter.cuimc.columbia.edu/patient-care/clinical-services|publisher=Columbia University Irving Medical Center|access-date=January 10, 2021}} Located at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, they have a clinical and research function directed at ALS and the related motor neuron diseases primary lateral sclerosis and progressive muscular atrophy.

In March 2021, Major League Baseball declared June 2 henceforth to be Lou Gehrig Day.{{Cite web |title=Inaugural Lou Gehrig Day set for June 2 |url=https://www.mlb.com/news/lou-gehrig-day-june-2-to-raise-als-awareness |access-date=May 10, 2021 |website=MLB.com |date=March 4, 2021 |first=Anthony |last=Castrovince}} June 2 was chosen because it is the anniversary of when Gehrig became the Yankees' starting first baseman in 1925 and when he died in 1941.{{cite news |url=https://www.mlb.com/news/lou-gehrig-day-june-2nd-2021-details |title=Inaugural Lou Gehrig Day: All the details |first=Anthony |last=Castrovince |website=MLB.com |date=June 1, 2021 |access-date=June 1, 2021}}

Sixty years after his farewell to baseball, Gehrig received the most votes of any baseball player on the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, chosen by fan balloting in 1999.

In 1999, editors at Sporting News ranked Gehrig sixth on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players".{{cite web |url=http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/lisn100.shtml |title=100 Greatest Baseball Players by The Sporting News : A Legendary List by Baseball Almanac |publisher=Baseball-almanac.com |access-date=March 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070712221219/http://www.cycleback.com/eddiecollins.html |archive-date=July 12, 2007 |url-status=dead }} In 2022, as part of their SN Rushmore project, they also named Gehrig on their "New York Mount Rushmore of Sports", along with fellow Yankee Babe Ruth, New York Knicks basketball player Walt Frazier, and New York Giants football player Lawrence Taylor.{{cite news |last1=Gatto |first1=Tom |title=New York's Mount Rushmore of Sports: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lawrence Taylor, Walt Frazier voted best of the best |url=https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/new-york-mount-rushmore-sports-babe-ruth-lou-gehrig-lawrence-taylor-walt-frazier/mksx1uyhff2bqshrshfln1qb |work=The Sporting News |date=August 1, 2022}}

File:Lou Gehrig 1925.jpg

{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

File:Gehrig in rawhide.jpg]]

Gehrig starred in the 1938 20th Century Fox movie Rawhide, playing himself in his only feature-film appearance.Robinson, Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, pp. 231–32. In 2006, researchers presented a paper to the American Academy of Neurology, reporting on an analysis of Rawhide and photographs of Gehrig from the 1937–1939 period, to ascertain when he began to show visible symptoms of ALS. They concluded that while atrophy of hand muscles could be detected in 1939 photographs of him, no such abnormality was visible at the time Rawhide was shot in January 1938. "Examination of Rawhide showed that Gehrig functioned normally in January 1938," the report concluded.{{cite web |title=Lou Gehrig, Rawhide, and 1938 |author=Melissa Lewis Paul H. Gordon |publisher=American Academy of Neurology |date=July 13, 2006 |url=http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/short/68/8/615?rss=1 |access-date=April 22, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090412014654/http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/short/68/8/615?rss=1 |archive-date=April 12, 2009 |url-status=live }}

Gehrig's life was the subject of the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees, starring Gary Cooper as Gehrig and Teresa Wright as his wife Eleanor. It received eleven Academy Award nominations and won in one category, Film Editing. Former Yankee teammates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig and Bill Dickey (then still an active player) played themselves, as did sportscaster Bill Stern. In 2008, the AFI honored The Pride of the Yankees as the third-best sports picture ever made.

"The Lou Gehrig Story", about the days leading up to his farewell speech, was also featured on an episode of the CBS anthology TV series Climax! on April 19, 1956, starring Wendell Corey and Jean Hagen.{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noOEQxZHvDI | title=Climax: The Lou Gehrig Story (April 19, 1956, CBS) | website=YouTube | date=July 2021 }}

The 1978 TV movie A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story starred Blythe Danner and Edward Herrmann as Eleanor and Gehrig respectively. It was based on the 1976 autobiography My Luke and I, written by Eleanor Gehrig and Joseph Durso.

In an episode of the PBS series Jean Shepherd's America, the Chicago-born Jean Shepherd told of how he and his father would watch Chicago White Sox games from the right-field upper deck at Comiskey Park in the 1930s. On one occasion, the Sox were playing the Yankees, and the elder Shepherd had been taunting Gehrig, yelling at him all day. In the top of the ninth, with Sox icon Ted Lyons holding a slim lead, Gehrig came to bat with a man on base, and the elder Shepherd yelled in a voice that echoed around the ballpark, "Hit one up here, ya bum! I dare ya!" Gehrig did exactly that, hitting a screaming liner, practically into the heckler's lap, for the eventual game-winning home run. Shepherd's father was booed mercilessly, and he never again took the younger Jean to a game. Shepherd apparently told this story originally when Gehrig's widow was in the audience at a speaking engagement.{{cite web |url=http://gadfly.igc.org/essays2/shepherd.htm |title=Jean Shepherd – 1921–1999 |access-date=April 16, 2008 |last=Partridge |first=Ernest |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304172953/http://gadfly.igc.org/essays2/shepherd.htm |archive-date=March 4, 2008 |url-status=live }}Gehrig hit eight home runs off Ted Lyons, two of them in Chicago: one in 1927 and another on June 25, 1936. The Yankees did indeed win this game by a single run, 7–6, but the homer was not hit in the ninth inning, but instead the second inning.{{cite web|url=https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA193606250.shtml|title=June 25, 1936 New York Yankees at Chicago White Sox Play by Play and Box Score|work=Baseball Reference|access-date=July 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228171604/https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA193606250.shtml|archive-date=December 28, 2017|url-status=live}}

Gehrig's digital likeness and the opening quote of the "baseball's Gettysburg Address" are featured in All Star Baseball 2004.{{Citation|last=Habib Jackson|title=All Star Baseball 2004 Intro|date=August 19, 2017|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5RHTUa1X1Y&t=29s| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200502175005/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5RHTUa1X1Y&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=May 2, 2020|access-date=June 21, 2019}}

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{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |title=Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig |first=Jonathan |last=Eig |author-link=Jonathan Eig |publisher=Simon & Schuster |date=2005 |isbn=978-0743245913 |url=https://archive.org/details/luckiestmanlifea00eigj }}
• {{cite book |title=The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball's Most Historic Record |first=John |last=Eisenberg |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |date=2017 |isbn=978-0544107670}}
• {{cite book |url=https://www.amazon.com/Gehrig-Pride-Yankees-Paul-Gallico/dp/B0006APPP4/ |title=Lou Gehrig, Pride of the Yankees |first=Paul |last=Gallico |author-link=Paul Gallico |publisher=Grosset & Dunlap |date=1942 |asin=B0006APPP4}}
• {{cite book |title=Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir |first=Lou |last=Gehrig |author-link= |publisher=Simon & Schuster |date=2020 |isbn=978-1982132392 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YYIqEAAAQBAJ }}
• Kashatus, William C. Lou Gehrig: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-313-32866-8}}.
• {{cite web |url=http://mlb.mlb.com/nyy/history/gehrig.jsp |title=Pride of the Yankees – The 100th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's birth |first=Mark |last=Newman |website=MLB.com |date=June 18, 2003}}
• {{cite web |url=http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ccdffd4c |title=Lou Gehrig |first=James Lincoln |last=Ray |website=SABR}}
• {{cite book |title=Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time |first=Ray |last=Robinson |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |date=1990 |isbn=978-0393028577 |url=https://archive.org/details/ironhorselougehr00robi_0 }}
• {{cite book |title=The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper, and the Making of a Classic |first=Richard |last=Sandomir |author-link=Richard Sandomir |publisher=Hachette Books |date=2017 |isbn=978-0316355056}}

{{Sister project links|collapsible=true|wikt=Lou Gehrig's disease|c=Category:Lou Gehrig|d=Q357444}}

• {{Official website|http://www.lougehrig.com/}}
• [https://www.alscenter.cuimc.columbia.edu Website] for the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center at NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center
• {{Baseballhof|gehrig-lou}}
• {{Baseballstats|mlb=114680|espn=21958|br=g/gehrilo01|fangraphs=1004598|brm=gehrig001hen|retro=G/Pgehrl101}}

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