The Streak

by John Eisenberg

  Gehrig greeted him at the plate with a broad smile and warm handshake before stepping in to hit. He did not mind seeing his famous teammate take a bow. When Ruth trotted back out to right field for the top of the ninth, fans in the bleachers waved their handkerchiefs, and Ruth “entered into the carnival spirit and punctuated his kingly strides with a succession of snappy military salutes,” the Times wrote.

  The next day, the Yankees played their regular-season finale on Saturday afternoon against the Senators. Ruth was known to take such games off, especially with the Yankees set to start the World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates in a few days. Gehrig could also have taken the day off; maybe the rest would have helped him shake his late-season slump. But both players told Huggins they wanted to play. Ruth was having fun, and Gehrig simply was accustomed to playing every day, having done so for more than two full seasons.

  Ruth walked once in four at-bats before being lifted late in the game, which the Yankees won, 6–3. Gehrig played the whole game and hit a three-run homer, giving him 47, more than any player other than Ruth had ever hit in a season. He finished with a .373 average, higher than Ruth’s .356, and 175 runs batted in, 11 more than Ruth. He easily won the balloting for the League Award, the forerunner of the Most Valuable Player award.

  As Gehrig emerged, Ruth saw an opportunity. After the Yankees completed their dominant 1927 season with a four-game sweep of the Pirates in the World Series, the two players headlined a barnstorming tour arranged by Ruth’s agent. Ruth and Gehrig drew crowds throughout the Midwest and California, captaining teams of local amateurs at each stop. Always, it was the “Bustin’ Babes” against the “Larrupin’ Lous.” The tour closed in Los Angeles before 25,000 fans at Wrigley Field, the local Pacific Coast League ballpark. According to Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man, a Gehrig biography, Ruth earned $30,000 on the tour and Gehrig made $10,000, more than his Yankees salary.

  Grateful for Ruth’s generosity, Gehrig readily accepted that his larger-than-life teammate would always generate more headlines, make more money, and probably hit more home runs; Gehrig would always be the sidekick. Yet inevitably, Gehrig also wanted to set himself apart from Ruth, to establish qualities for which he alone was known. Statistically, he made it a goal to drive in more runs than Ruth. “That’s MY thing,” he told reporters. Gehrig also sought to be dependable, ready at all times to play his best, unlike the erratic Ruth. His strength, conditioning, and lifestyle made it possible for him to play every day, as did his earnest philosophy. “I belong on the ball field,” Gehrig said.

  “I like to think Lou just fell into having a streak,” Cal Ripken Jr. said. “That’s what happened to me. I had the physicality and resiliency to play every day, so I did, and suddenly one day I had played in a thousand games in a row and it was, ‘What are we going to do with this thing?’ I never started out to do it, and I’m sure Lou didn’t either. He had the strength to play every day, so he did.”

  By 1928, Gehrig’s daily presence in Huggins’s lineup was a certainty. That season, he and Ruth combined to hit 84 home runs and drive in 284 runs as the Yankees battled Philadelphia for the pennant. The Yankees built a large lead, lost it, and prevailed in the end. Along the way, Gehrig was ejected from two games for arguing with the umpire, and he came out of two other games early because of a sore foot. But his consecutive-game streak continued. Ruth also played in every game.

  In the seventh inning of the Yankees’ regular-season finale against Detroit, a ground ball took a bad hop and struck Gehrig in the face, knocking him to the ground. “He frightened everyone when he lay quite still,” the New York Times reported, but he soon stood and was helped off the field. Fully recovered by the start of the World Series, Gehrig led the Yankees to a sweep of the Cardinals, bashing four home runs.

  When the 1929 season began, the Yankees were entrenched as baseball’s glamour team. They had won the past two World Series and played in three in a row. Fans flocked to their games both at home and on the road, hopeful of seeing Ruth hit one out—and if not Ruth, Gehrig.

  But Connie Mack had put together a powerful Philadelphia Athletics squad featuring sluggers Al Simmons and Jimmy Foxx and pitchers Lefty Grove and George Earnshaw—the foundation of a dynasty set to emerge. The Athletics also were hungry after losing the 1928 pennant by a slim margin. When Ruth sat out games early in the season because of a hamstring injury, attributable to his being in poor shape, the Athletics roared out to a commanding lead. By mid-August, the Yankees were 15 games behind, and it was clear they would not play in their fourth straight Series.

  A dip in Gehrig’s performance, the first of his career, contributed to the Yankees’ failure to contend. Although he drove in 125 runs, a healthy total, by the end of the season his batting average had dropped 74 points from the year before. Even when diminished, though, Gehrig’s bat was preferable to any alternative on Huggins’s bench. Gehrig played in every game for the fourth straight year.

  As the season slipped away, Huggins was losing weight and developed a boil over his right eye. He said he was just upset about the team’s failings, but he started complaining about headaches and fatigue, missed three games, and finally agreed to check into the hospital. His doctors said he had a form of blood poisoning, which turned into sepsis. His condition spiraled in the wrong direction, and shockingly, Huggins died on September 25. He was just 51 years old.

  Word of his death reached the Yankees during a game in Boston. The center-field flag at Fenway Park was immediately lowered to half-staff, and a moment of silence was observed. Players wept in the Yankees’ clubhouse as they spoke to reporters after the game. Gehrig was nearly inconsolable; Huggins had guided his career, helped him develop. The American League canceled all games the next day.

  Ruth, ever the opportunist, campaigned to become the new manager. Other star players such as Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker had become managers later in their careers, and since Ruth had done so much for the Yankees, he figured they owed him. But Ruppert thought Ruth was immature, reportedly telling the slugger, “You can’t even manage yourself, much less a team.” The job went to Bob Shawkey, an easygoing former Yankees pitcher who had coached under Huggins.

  If Ruth had gotten the job, Gehrig’s consecutive-game streak might have ended. Ruth did not think such streaks were important enough to guarantee a player a spot in the lineup every day. What was the point? But Shawkey, a Huggins disciple, kept playing Gehrig. Why rest him? Gehrig had his finest all-around season in 1930, finishing with a .379 batting average, 41 home runs, and 179 runs batted in.

  The Yankees kept pace with the Athletics early in the season, but a losing streak in July dropped them back. Shawkey was unable to discipline his former teammates, especially Ruth, who ignored most rules and any attempt at punishment. By September, the Yankees were headed for their worst record in six years. Shawkey indulged Ruth one last time, letting him pitch against the Red Sox in the season finale in Boston. Ruth threw a complete game and won.

  Late in the season, Gehrig dealt with the first significant injuries of his career. His left elbow had started to hurt in July, and by late August he could barely make routine throws. The Yankees’ trainer suspected a chipped elbow bone. Then, in early September, Gehrig broke the little finger on his right hand. Instead of telling Shawkey, he wrapped the finger with tape before coming to the ballpark and continued to play as if nothing were wrong.

  His hitting did not suffer—his average in September was higher than in April and May—so no one could accuse him of hurting the team by playing when he was less than 100 percent. Throughout his career, he often played well when injured. But as soon as the season ended, he checked into St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York. The Yankees’ surgeon expected only to repair the chipped elbow bone, but X-rays revealed the broken finger Gehrig had hidden. That injury also required surgery.

  As Gehrig convalesced, Ruppert shopped for a new manager; clearly, Shawkey was not right for the job. Bypassing Ruth again, the owner hired Joe McC
arthy, a former Cubs manager who had instilled discipline in Chicago with a dress code and off-season exercise plan. The new skipper was under orders to “shake things up,” Ruppert said, and John Kieran, the New York Times columnist, offered a suggestion. “It might pay Joe to yank Lou Gehrig out of the lineup for a day,” Kieran wrote. “Lou hasn’t missed a game in the past five seasons. McCarthy should snap this string before it becomes a worry to Lou.”

  10

  Ripken

  A SOUR YEAR

  Cal Ripken Jr. was living a charmed baseball life. In his first two full seasons with the Orioles, he had won the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards and played on a World Series winner, catching the last out of the clincher. Any of those achievements would constitute a career highlight for most players, but Ripken experienced them all by age 23. As the 1988 season began, he was, at 27, a five-time All-Star who had never missed a game due to injury. Even with the Orioles coming off back-to-back losing seasons, his father was his manager, his brother was his double-play partner, and his best friend batted behind him every night.

  In 1988, though, his charmed life soured. The Orioles’ decline reached such a nadir they became fodder for talk-show comedians. Ripken was a subject of trade talks. His offensive production, which had tailed off in 1987, continued to settle at a more modest level. And worst of all, his father’s long-sought major league managerial opportunity ended abruptly.

  After watching the team lose 95 games in 1987, the Orioles’ owner, Edward Bennett Williams, had fired Hank Peters, the general manager, and also canned the minor league director and several influential scouts. Senior was retained as manager and gamely expressed optimism during spring training, but his hold on the job was tenuous given the team’s weak pitching staff and Williams’s obvious dissatisfaction with the status quo.

  Sure enough, after just six games, all defeats, Senior was fired. The Orioles had lost twice at home to the Milwaukee Brewers to start the season, including a 12–0 embarrassment on Opening Day, and then dropped four to the Indians in Cleveland by a combined 28–6 score. Even though the season was just a week old, Williams and his new general manager, Roland Hemond, had seen enough. Hours before the Orioles played the Kansas City Royals at Memorial Stadium on April 12, Senior was called into a meeting and told to clear out his office.

  It was the quickest in-season firing in major league history, and it staggered both of Senior’s sons. Bill heard the news on the radio as he drove to the ballpark for the game. “I was on Cold Spring Lane, about a mile away,” he said, vividly recalling the moment more than two decades later. Twenty-three years old and still relatively new to the majors, Bill was mostly confused. The Orioles’ trainer, Ralph Salvon, pulled him into an office when he reached the clubhouse. “Senior had told Ralph to tell me he was a big boy and could handle himself. I should just worry about taking care of myself,” Bill said.

  When Junior arrived shortly thereafter, the brothers exchanged a wordless look. “It was a blank stare, like, ‘What just happened?’” Bill said. “I think it is probably fair to say Junior was more pissed. He had a deeper understanding than I did at that point. He knew it wasn’t fair, that we were 0-6 for a reason, that Senior wasn’t given the horses to do anything with, which quickly became more evident.”

  Not surprisingly, while playing for the team that had just fired his father, Junior went into a funk. “He was still a young man. What happened with his dad bitterly disappointed him,” his agent, Ron Shapiro, said. Having already started the season slowly, he did not get a hit for a week after the firing, dropping his average to .047. For the season, he had two hits in 43 at-bats.

  Meanwhile, the Orioles continued to flounder under Senior’s replacement, Frank Robinson, a Hall of Fame outfielder from the team’s glory years in the 1960s. By late April, Baltimore had played 21 games and lost them all, an unimaginable situation for a team that had won the World Series just five years earlier. On the cover of Sports Illustrated, under the headline THE AGONY OF THE ORIOLES, Bill was pictured sitting in a dugout with his eyes closed, resting a bat against his forehead—a portrait of despair.

  Years later, Junior would recall the first months of the 1988 season as “a very difficult time.” He found refuge in the sport’s daily rituals, the rhythmic grind of pregame infield and batting practice followed by a game. Senior’s tutelage had produced a player as meticulous about his craft as an accountant poring over financial ledgers. In Junior’s opinion, you could not play a game without thoroughly preparing for it, and that preparation included honing his swing in batting practice and fielding dozens of ground balls.

  Many other players regarded the pregame work as drudgery and occasionally concocted reasons to skip it, but Ripken embraced it. “I think he even spurred Dad into making us do more of it when Dad was managing,” Bill recalled. While fans gawked at his growing consecutive-game and consecutive-inning streaks, teammates and opponents gawked at his devotion to batting and infield practice.

  “The most amazing thing was watching how hard he worked every day on preparing to play, just quietly going about his business,” said Mickey Tettleton, a catcher who joined the Orioles early in the 1988 season after being released by the Oakland Athletics. “It was a rough season for us, but you would never know from watching him. He was out there taking ground balls in the afternoon, never skirted that. And he never shut it down in a game, like if we were losing. He stayed focused and intense, never gave up even a single at-bat.”

  To Tettleton, who played 14 years in the major leagues, the root of Ripken’s commitment was easy to discern. “He just loved the game so much, everything about it, playing, competing every night, even in a bad year,” Tettleton said. “It was infectious. Even though we were losing, guys enjoyed being around one another. We would hang out in the clubhouse after games, talk baseball. He made it easy. He very well could have been one of those bigger-than-life figures, but he was just one of the guys.”

  After his slow start, Ripken heated up, his average soaring to .316 by May, but then he slumped again and was back under .240 by early June. The highs and lows were dizzying, but Robinson continued to play him every day. The last-place Orioles had little else going for them. “A real pleasure I had was coming to the ballpark every day and knowing I could write his name in the lineup without checking with him or the trainer,” Robinson recalled.

  One night, Ripken crashed into the Orioles’ third baseman, Rick Schu, while chasing a pop foul down the left-field line. “Both guys went for it. The collision was pretty violent. They went down hard and stayed down,” recalled Roland Hemond, who would hold the Orioles’ general manager job from 1988 through 1995. “My first thought was, ‘Well, this might be it for Cal and the streak.’ Rick told me later he didn’t care whether he was injured, just whether Cal got up. And Cal eventually did, like always.”

  On June 25, 1988, Ripken became the sixth major leaguer to play in a thousand straight games. When the first to do it, Everett Scott, reached that threshold in 1923, he received a hero’s treatment in Washington even though he played for the visiting Yankees. The U.S. secretary of the navy gave a speech. A marine band played. Scott received a commemorative gold medallion from the American League. But when Ripken reached a thousand in a row, also as a visiting player, his achievement received no mention during the game at Boston’s Fenway Park, and even his teammates did not congratulate him. “I don’t remember it. We didn’t throw a party. I don’t even think we talked about it,” Bill Ripken said.

  Unlike Scott, Ripken was not the consecutive-game record holder. In fact, he needed to play in every game for another seven seasons to reach Gehrig’s record. He was not even halfway there, and Hemond, a veteran executive, did not believe he would make it. It was just too likely he would get injured at some point in the next seven years, Hemond thought. Players pulled muscles, shattered bones, and suffered other debilitating injuries. Every pitch brought the chance that it was your turn. Ripken was determined and strong, b
ut surely the odds would catch up with him.

  “It was admirable, what Cal had done to get that far, a thousand in a row,” Hemond said years later. “But to envision him going on and breaking the record, it was difficult to comprehend that was even humanly possible.”

  After 21 straight losses, the Orioles finally recorded their first win of 1988 on April 29, defeating the White Sox in Chicago, 9–0. Four days later, at their first home game since they snapped the losing streak, a sellout crowd packed Memorial Stadium for a “Fantastic Fans Night” promotion, billed as a chance for Baltimore to show support for its beleaguered club, now the city’s only major league sports team, with football’s Colts gone.

  With more than 50,000 fans on hand, it felt like a World Series game. Taking a microphone before the huge crowd, Maryland’s governor, William Donald Schaefer, announced the state had just signed a deal to build a new ballpark for the Orioles in downtown Baltimore. Initially stunned, the fans loosed a roar. Schaefer’s news quashed long-simmering rumors about the team possibly moving to Washington, where Edward Bennett Williams resided.

  The Orioles won the game, sending the fans home delighted. But once the euphoria of that exciting night wore off, it was clear Baltimore was in for a long, grim summer. By late May, the Orioles had played 47 games and won nine. “We weren’t having any fun at all on the field,” Ripken recalled. His baseball life had gone from charming to depressing, from sweet to stressful, and increasingly uncertain. Although the Orioles’ future in Baltimore was now set, Ripken’s was not. Shapiro had negotiated a multiyear contract for him before the season, but he turned it down, instead signing a one-year deal that enabled him to become a free agent after the 1988 season. It appeared he was willing to move on. Senior’s firing only increased the perception in the industry that he was unhappy in Baltimore.