Why the New York Yankees Are the Greatest! Part Two

Just three years after Babe Ruth came to the Yankees, the New York team signed a young man from Columbia University. Louis Henry Gehrig had been so good in college it was reported he hit balls over buildings. 

Gehrig himself would become a Yankee legend and an icon. Before he became an athlete with a disease named after him, he was first a rookie and then the inimitable "Iron Horse." 

Lou Gehrig only played in 13 games for the Bombers in 1923 and only appeared in 10 games in 1924. The Yankees already had a very good first baseman in Wally Pipp and there seemed to be no place for the college kid to break in.

But then, one day in 1925, Pipp was not feeling 100 percent. Miller Huggins, the Yankee manager, inserted Lou at first with everyone probably thinking it would only be until the veteran Pipp felt better.  

Gehrig would go on to play in 2,130 straight games before amyotropic lateral sclerosis would weaken him and destroy his once powerful body. For 14 straight seasons Lou did not miss a game. When he went to Spring Training in 1939 everyone was expecting his usual spectacular season.

After all, Gehrig had led the American League in hitting for four straight years from 1934 through 1937. In ’38 he had trailed off a little to finish at .295, but he had played every game that year as well.

Gehrig had had eight seasons when he collected over 200 hits. That was from a slugging first baseman at a time when the regular schedule was only 154 games. And in five seasons he had more RBI than games played, a feat very seldom duplicated.

In 1927, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs setting the single-season record. But that year, Gehrig was chosen as the League’s Most Valuable Player on a team that many have called the greatest team ever to play. He won the MVP again in 1936.

And in 1934 Gehrig had won the Triple Crown leading the A.L. with 49 home runs, 165 RBI, and a .363 average. 

Gehrig had been chosen for every All-Star Game since that premier event had started during the 1933 season. 

As great as he was on the field, Lou Gehrig was also a great gentleman.  So unlike his boisterous teammate, Babe Ruth, Gehrig was always quiet, but always friendly. He was almost never seen without a smile on his face or a kind word for everyone.

But most people probably remember Lou Gehrig now for what happened on July 4, 1939. This was after it had been determined that he was so sick he would never play again.

Gehrig gave what has been called baseball’s “Gettysburg Address”, saying farewell to his teammates and all the fans that had come to admire and even worship him over the years of his consistent excellence. 

Gehrig said what was hard for most to believe, that he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Those lines have become a part of our culture celebrated in many different ways, as in the hit movie of the 1990s, Sleepless in Seattle.

Years have passed. The record that many true baseball fans believed would never be broken, Gehrig’s streak of 2130 straight games, was broken by the great Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Orioles in 1996.

But Gehrig is remembered not just for the streak and not just for his farewell. Gehrig is remembered for his character and for his incredibly consistent great play over the course of his career. 

He was the face of the New York team for so many years that many people still think of him first when they think of the Yankees. His No. 4 was the first number in baseball history to be retired.

It is hard to imagine a player on any other team, in any other city who could be remembered in the same way Gehrig is now.  The great Yankees were made greater by Lou Gehrig.