“Don’t go to the stadium today. Tell them anything you want, but skip it,” she said.
She stated her case. Gehrig had already proved that no player in history could match his endurance, she said. Stopping the streak now, just shy of 2,000, would be memorable. Why wait for it to end on a more depressing note, because of injury or age?
Gehrig, according to Eig’s book, replied that it was an interesting idea, but “you know I can’t just skip it.” After playing through so many injuries and illnesses, he was not going to end the streak on a day when he felt great. He still believed he could reach 2,500 games in a row. Although he had started slowly that season, he was heating up. He kissed Eleanor good-bye and headed to the ballpark in the Bronx.
On a sunny afternoon, just 6,000 fans came to see Gehrig reach the biggest of round numbers—2,000 games in a row. The Yankees did not hold a ceremony either before the game or when the game became official. No actors or politicians gave speeches or presented Gehrig with a trophy or commemorative coin. Gehrig collected one hit, a single, in four at-bats and drove in a run as the Yankees pounded the Red Sox, 12–5. Gehrig posed for a few pictures, but that was all that marked the day as different.
When reporters surrounded him after the game, the conversation turned, as usual, to why he kept going. Perhaps because he now knew even his wife thought it might be time to stop, Gehrig reacted coolly. “I don’t see why anyone should attack my record. I have never belittled anyone else’s,” he said. “I intend to play every day and shall continue to give my best to my employers and the fans.”
The Yankees soon found the form that had produced back-to-back World Series triumphs. With a run of 20 wins in 24 games, they took first place in early July and quickly grew a lead. Their third straight pennant was assured. But Gehrig played an increasingly minor role and dealt with more injuries. Another lumbago attack forced him out of one game. On July 17, he reached for a low throw from pitcher Spud Chandler, and the ball glanced off his left thumb. The team doctor wanted him to get an X-ray, but he refused, saying, “I’ll shake it off. That’s what I’ve always done.” When he finally relented, the X-ray revealed a fractured bone in the thumb as well as “several old fractures Gehrig knew nothing about,” one newspaper reported.
After an off day, Gehrig wore a splint on his thumb during batting practice before the Yankees played Cleveland on July 19. He removed the splint for the game and played all nine innings, going hitless in four at-bats. Asked if the injury might end his streak, Gehrig replied, “I would play in this series if I had no thumb at all.” He went on: “Oh, it hurts, but I can grip a bat and handle a ball all right, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t play.”
He eventually heated up, collecting four hits in one game and pushing his average near .300 by late July. But though he had almost 100 runs batted in, he was troubled by his inability to drive the ball. Most of his hits were singles now rather than doubles or home runs. Trying to reignite his power, he heeded McCarthy’s suggestion to use a lighter bat—33 ounces instead of 38—but that did not help. Nor did adopting a new approach in which he relied on his hands and arms rather than his legs. He hit just three home runs in the Yankees’ last 30 games.
Near the end of the season, the Yankees played a batch of doubleheaders. Gehrig obviously was tired. At his “tea party” at the Commodore Hotel the year before, he had said he would no longer resort to stunts like the one he pulled in Detroit to keep his streak alive. “I don’t believe in making a practice of that sort of thing. I don’t want to cheapen the record. If I can’t play through [a game], we will let it lapse,” he had said. But when the time came, late in the 1938 season, he could not bring himself to do it.
On September 19, he did not feel like playing against the Browns in St. Louis. The Yankees had clinched the pennant the day before and celebrated into the night. Now fewer than a thousand fans were on hand for a Monday afternoon game at Sportsman’s Park. Gehrig did not come up to bat in the top of the first, then played first base in the bottom of the inning. When it was his turn to bat in the top of the second, his backup, Babe Dahlgren, pinch-hit for him. He was done for the day without a plate appearance.
After the game, which the Yankees lost, 13–0, there was no mention of Gehrig’s being injured or ill. The team did not explain why he had left the game early. Ten days later, Gehrig made another token appearance in the second game of a doubleheader against the Athletics in Philadelphia. After he had played the whole first game, collecting a hit and scoring a run, McCarthy put him at his usual spot in the lineup for the second game. Gehrig watched the Yankees go down in order in the top of the first, then played the field in the bottom of the inning. But when it was his turn to bat in the top of the second, Dahlgren hit for him. For the second time, he was out of a game without having batted.
The Yankees easily swept the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, winning four games by a combined score of 22–9. Gehrig played every inning, extending his World Series consecutive-game streak to 34. After losing in his inaugural appearance in the Fall Classic in 1926, he and the Yankees had triumphed in 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, and, now, 1938.
A lifetime .361 hitter in the Series, Gehrig usually led the Yankees in October. But he was quiet this time, collecting just four singles against the Cubs. Of the Yankees’ big hitters, he was the only one who failed to knock a home run. Of course, with DiMaggio and Dickey sandwiching him in the order, the club no longer depended heavily on him.
In the top of the fourth inning of the first game, a scene unfolded that, in McCarthy’s opinion, made it clear that Gehrig’s playing days were just about over. Gehrig bashed a hit to deep right field, seemingly an easy double. But the Cubs’ right fielder scooped up the ball and hurled it to the second baseman, who passed it on to the shortstop covering second. Gehrig was out by three feet. He could no longer leg out a double.
In the final game, played at Yankee Stadium on October 9, 1938, Gehrig batted fifth and played first. With the Yankees leading, 4–3, in the bottom of the eighth, Gehrig batted with one out and DiMaggio on first. Vance Page, a tall right-hander for the Cubs, threw a high fastball. Gehrig swung and connected. The ball headed for right field on a line and sank to the grass for a single. DiMaggio reached third on the play, and both he and Gehrig scored during a four-run rally.
In the top of the ninth, Red Ruffing, the Yankees’ pitcher, allowed a leadoff single, then recorded two outs. With the Cubs down to their last out, their second baseman, Billy Herman, swung awkwardly and tapped the ball to Ruffing. The pitcher scooped it up and tossed it to Gehrig, who squeezed the final out in his mitt and raced to the mound to congratulate the pitcher and shake hands with his teammates. It was his last moment of glory on a diamond.
The winter after the 1938 season was an uneasy time for Eleanor Gehrig. She was increasingly concerned about her husband, who fell several times while ice-skating and complained enough about persistent stomach distress that she made him see a doctor, who diagnosed gallbladder trouble and put him on a bland diet.
Gehrig simply was not himself. “I thought he might have a brain tumor,” she admitted later. “We were both worried but never said anything for fear of scaring the other.”
When Gehrig struggled again in spring training before the 1939 season, he said it was because he had been lazy over the winter and was out of shape. He had experienced spring slumps before, but this one was the worst. He collected just three singles in his first 35 exhibition at-bats. Trying to find a rhythm, he spent extra time in the batting cage, but one day DiMaggio watched him swing and miss at 19 straight pitches, a startling scene. When he did reach base in games, he was so heavy-legged it seemed he wore ankle weights. In the field, two easy ground balls scooted through his legs. One day, he flubbed a grounder and was picked off first.
After graciously ignoring his struggles for a few weeks, the press began to acknowledge them. The New York Herald Tribune reported “concern” among the Yankees over whether Gehrig was his us
ual self. Even when he hit two home runs in a game near the end of spring training, he convinced few observers that he was now fine. Reporters openly speculated about the possible end of his playing streak, which stood at 2,122 games.
McCarthy was not going to bench him. In the manager’s opinion, Gehrig deserved to decide when the streak ended, and Gehrig wanted to keep going.
On Opening Day, he went hitless in four at-bats, grounded into two double plays, and committed an error, dropping a throw as he tried to tag a runner—a play he usually made. A day later, he botched a routine ground ball, and although the official scorer did not charge him with an error, it was a mistake. There were two more mistakes the next day, a line drive that went off his glove and another that almost bowled him over.
After five games, he had one hit, a single. But then he singled twice and collected his first run batted in of the season in a win over the Athletics on April 25. “I am getting looser every day,” Gehrig told sportswriter Dan Daniel. “I owe my current troubles to my own mistakes. At my age, an athlete cannot laze around all winter and hope to develop playing form in six or seven weeks of spring training. I should’ve jogged all through the off-season and come [to spring training] as well prepared as I am right now. That will be corrected next winter. Don’t worry. I will be around then, and in 1940 as well. I am a determined man.”
To those suggesting he should rest because he was struggling, he said, “Once and for all, let me make it plain that snapping my streak would only do me harm. Unbroken, that string is a tremendous incentive. I’m not tired. Taking a day off would be silly.”
Privately, he was greatly concerned. He knew his body. Something was wrong. This was not just a slump. Maybe the problem would correct itself, but he was losing faith in his ability. He knew his teammates had doubts, too.
After his two-hit game against the Athletics, he went 1-for-3 with a walk against the Senators on April 29. The next day, a Sunday, the Yankees played Washington again before 23,712 fans at Yankee Stadium. It was their last home game before a two-week road trip, and it zipped along, scoreless, until the Yankees scored a run in the bottom of the seventh. After the Senators came back with three runs in the top of the eighth, the Yankees tried to rally. Gehrig came up with two men on and two out, with a chance to put his team ahead and maybe win the game—a situation in which he had long thrived. He was 0-for-3, but now he drove the ball on a line into center field. The fans rose in anticipation, thinking he had come through, but the Senators’ George Case tracked the ball down and grabbed it for the third out.
Gehrig was disconsolate after the game. He was hitting .143 and had stranded runners in several at-bats in the one-run defeat. He blamed himself for the loss. In addition, in the top of the ninth, he had needed help to record a routine out: the Yankees pitcher had to race from the mound to cover first because Gehrig was so slow getting to the bag after fielding a ground ball. His streak now stood at 2,130, but he felt he had become a liability.
After an off day and an overnight train ride, the Yankees arrived in Detroit on Tuesday morning, May 2, and checked into the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Gehrig ate breakfast with Dickey and sat in the lobby next to a sportswriter, Charlie Segar, until McCarthy arrived. The manager had spent the off day with his family in Buffalo and flown in that morning. Gehrig stood up, approached McCarthy, and said, “Joe, I want to talk to you about an important matter.” They went upstairs to McCarthy’s room.
“Joe, I always said I would quit when I felt I was no longer any help to this team. I don’t think I’m any help. When do you want me to quit?” Gehrig said.
“Today,” McCarthy replied. (“I was afraid he’d get hurt. His reflexes were gone. He couldn’t get out of the way of the ball,” McCarthy said later.)
Gehrig hoped he would only have to miss a few games before reclaiming his spot in the lineup; maybe the rest would prove beneficial, he thought. Regardless, he wanted to end the streak. McCarthy returned to the lobby, summoned the beat writers, and delivered the stunning news: Gehrig would miss that afternoon’s game at Briggs Stadium.
“Lou just told me he felt it would be best for the club if he took himself out,” McCarthy said. “I asked if he really felt that way. He told me he is serious. He feels blue. He is dejected. I told him it would be as he wished. Like everybody else, I’m sorry to see it happen. I told him not to worry. Maybe the warm weather will bring him around. We’ll miss him. You can’t escape that fact. But I think he’s doing the right thing.”
Gehrig stopped in the lobby on his way to the park and spoke to the writers. Some reported he was near tears.
“I decided last Sunday night on this move,” he said. “I haven’t been a bit of good to the team since the season started. It’s tough to see your mates on base, have a chance to win a ballgame, and not be able to do anything about it. Joe has been swell about it. He’d let me go until the cows come home. He is that considerate of my feelings, but I knew in Sunday’s game that I should get out of there. I went up there four times with men on base and didn’t knock any home. Maybe a rest will do me good. Maybe it won’t. Who knows? Who can tell? I’m just hoping.”
Gehrig took a cab to the park and dressed as if he would play. McCarthy gave his spot in the lineup to Dahlgren, a lanky 26-year-old in his first full season with the Yankees. According to a 1956 Sports Illustrated essay by Dahlgren, Art Fletcher, a Yankees coach, broke the news to him in the dugout during warm-ups.
“Babe, you’re playing first today,” Fletcher said.
“Are you kidding?” Dahlgren asked.
“Good luck, Babe,” Fletcher replied.
Gehrig took the lineup card to the plate before the game, a chore that often fell to him as the team captain. As the brief meeting with the umpires broke up and Gehrig returned to the dugout, the stadium announcer, Ty Tyson, said, “How about a hand for Lou Gehrig, who played in 2,130 games in a row before he benched himself today!”
The 11,000 fans briefly sat in silence, stunned, before erupting in applause, aware they were witnessing history. Gehrig tipped his cap, ducked into the dugout, and took a long drink from a water fountain, hovering over the spigot so his teammates could not see his tears. As the fans continued to applaud, some of those teammates wept, too.
When the game began, the Yankees scored six runs in the top of the first, as if they wanted the Tigers to pay for Gehrig’s disappointment. Dahlgren showed no sign of nervousness. He hit a home run in the third inning and later added a double. In the seventh, with the Yankees well ahead, Dahlgren approached Gehrig in the dugout and asked, “How about playing an inning or two to keep the streak alive?”
Gehrig replied, “They don’t need me out there. You’re doing fine.”
When the last out of the Yankees’ 22–2 win was recorded, it was official: for the first time in almost 14 years, the Yankees had played a game without Gehrig.
His consecutive-game streak had begun at the height of the Roaring Twenties and rolled through a stock market crash, the worst of the Great Depression, the end of Prohibition, and parts of three U.S. presidencies, and now was ending on the verge of a second world war. Baseball on the radio had just become popular when it started. Now games were starting to crop up on a thing called television.
In newspapers across the country, the end of Gehrig’s streak vied for front-page space with the day’s other news: the world’s fair opening in New York, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal facing criticism in Washington, and German chancellor Adolf Hitler’s threat to claim more of Europe. Gehrig topped them all with his melancholy baseball tale—surprising, bittersweet, and soon to become even sadder.
By coincidence, Wally Pipp was at Briggs Stadium to see Gehrig’s streak end. The man Gehrig replaced at first base for the Yankees in 1925 now lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and had business in Detroit that day. He was at the Book-Cadillac Hotel, visiting his former team, as the Gehrig drama unfolded that morning.
Pipp thought Gehrig looked ill. It was not just Geh
rig’s failure to hit or make routine defensive plays. He had lost weight. His thick, muscular frame used to fill his uniform, but now his jersey hung loosely.
“The breakdown of Lou reminds me of the total breakdown of Everett Scott in 1925, which emphasizes a fact, which Lou has denied, that playing day after day for the record is bunk. It takes too much out of a man,” Pipp told Dan Daniel.
Gehrig remained with the club for another month, taking batting practice and sitting on the bench during games, but his only on-field appearance came in an exhibition game against the Yankees’ Kansas City farm club on June 12, 1939.
When he saw Kansas City’s Ruppert Stadium filled with more than 23,000 fans that day, he felt compelled to try to play. “The crowd roared,” the Kansas City Times reported, when it was announced he would start at first base for the Yankees. But he lasted just three innings. He fell down making one play and let another easy ground ball roll past him for a hit. In the top of the third, he trudged to the plate, swung weakly at a fastball, and grounded to second. McCarthy pulled him. He never played again.
The next day, the Yankees took a train to New York, and Gehrig traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, hoping to discover what was wrong with him. “I can’t help believe there’s something,” he told reporters. “It’s not conceivable that I could go to pieces so suddenly. I feel fine, feel strong, and have the urge to play, but without warning this year I’ve apparently collapsed. I’d like to play some more, and I want somebody to tell me what’s wrong.”
A week of tests produced a stunning diagnosis. Gehrig had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating neurological disease marked by rapidly developing weakness and muscle atrophy. Suddenly, his decline made sense.
So little was known about ALS that Everett Scott mistakenly told a reporter Gehrig probably would not have become ill if only he had sat out a few more games, “Lou should have gone 100 games past me, sat one out, and then played about 125 a year. Maybe he wouldn’t be in this situation,” Scott said.
The Streak Page 24