Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
by Jonathan Eig

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
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Book Summary Information

Author: Jonathan Eig
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-03-28
ISBN: 0743268938
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Book Reviews of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

Book Review: Quiet Courage
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a review of the Lou Gehrig biography, "Luckiest Man,"
written by Jonathan Eig and published by Simon and Schuster in 2005.

For those who do not know, Lou Gehrig was the stalwart, slugging first
baseman of the legendary Babe Ruth-led New York Yankees team that roared
through the 1920s and eventually morphed into the streamlined Joe DiMaggio-
led Bronx Bombers of the 1930s.

The subtitle of this biography is "The Life And Death Of Lou Gehrig,"
which accurately describes the contents of this book. But that subtitle
does not accurately describe the gracefulness with which this book is
written.

The book does a very good job describing Gehrig's early years, the struggle
to survive and how his German immigrant parents sacrificed much so their
Louie could have the best they could afford. And, unlike many children,
young Lou Gehrig understood and appreciated their efforts which surely inspired him to go to great lengths to achieve what he did although his parents
did not really understand the concept of professinal sports.

But where this book really shnes is the printing of the many letters from Lou Gehrig to his wife discussing the possibilites of the fatal disease
and detailing his fight to beat what eventually he had to accept was
his killer.

Lou Gehrig was an admirable man to the very end and I recommend
this book to anyone as a source of inspiration, a baseball biography,
a treatise on American life a century ago or just a good read.

The film, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is still one of the all-time great baseball
movies as well as a darn good biography. And Gary Cooper really does resemble
Lou Gehrig in many ways except his voice. Lou Gehrig had what we would call a New York accent and if you want to see /hear him in action he did star in a 1937 B western called RAWHIDE that, while no great shakes as a movie, displays what Lou Gehrig really talked like and even how he carried hmself in real life.

So I have rated Jonathan Eig's "Luckiest Man, " five stars because it echos,
in its prose and its subject, a man who we were lucky to sort of know, even at the great distance of many decades.


Summary of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

Lou Gehrig was a baseball legend -- the Iron Horse, the stoic New York Yankee who was the greatest first baseman in history, a man whose consecutive-games streak was ended by a horrible disease that now bears his name. But as this definitive new biography makes clear, Gehrig's life was more complicated -- and, perhaps, even more heroic -- than anyone really knew.

Drawing on new interviews and more than two hundred pages of previously unpublished letters to and from Gehrig, Luckiest Man gives us an intimate portrait of the man who became an American hero: his life as a shy and awkward youth growing up in New York City, his unlikely friendship with Babe Ruth (a friendship that allegedly ended over rumors that Ruth had had an affair with Gehrig's wife), and his stellar career with the Yankees, where his consecutive-games streak stood for more than half a century. What was not previously known, however, is that symptoms of Gehrig's affliction began appearing in 1938, earlier than is commonly acknowledged. Later, aware that he was dying, Gehrig exhibited a perseverance that was truly inspiring; he lived the last two years of his short life with the same grace and dignity with which he gave his now-famous "luckiest man" speech.

Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man shows us one of the greatest baseball players of all time as we've never seen him before.


Lou Gehrig started his professional baseball career at a time when players began to be seen as national celebrities. Though this suited charismatic men such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, Gehrig avoided the spotlight and preferred to speak with his bat. Best known for playing in 2,130 consecutive games as well as his courage in battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a disease that now bears his name), the Iron Horse that emerges from this book is surprisingly naïve and insecure. He would cry in the clubhouse after disappointing performances, was painfully shy around women (much to the amusement of some of his teammates), and particularly devoted to his German-immigrant mother all his life. Even after earning the league MVP award he still feared the Yankees would let him go. Against the advice of Ruth and others, he refused to negotiate aggressively and so earned less than he deserved for many seasons. Honest, humble, and notoriously frugal, his only vices were chewing gum and the occasional cigarette. And despite becoming one of the finest first basemen of all time, Jonathan Eig shows how Gehrig never seemed to conquer his self-doubt, only to manage it better.

Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig offers a fascinating and well-rounded portrait of Gehrig, from his dugout rituals and historic games to his relationships with his mother, wife, coaches, and teammates. His complex friendship with Ruth, who was the polar opposite to Gehrig in nearly every respect, is given particularly vivid attention. Take this revealing description of how the two men began a barnstorming tour together following their 1927 World Series victory: "Ruth tipped the call girls and sent them on their way. Gehrig kissed his mother goodbye." Eig also shares some previously unknown details regarding his consecutive games streak and how he dealt with ALS during the final years of his life. Rich in anecdotes and based on hundreds of interviews and 200 pages of recently discovered letters, the book effectively shows why the Iron Horse remains an American icon to this day. --Shawn Carkonen

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