Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
by Jonathan Eig
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan EigEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-03-28
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Book Review: "He was not two dimensional . . ."
Summary: 5 Stars
My only real familiarity with Lou Gehrig, prior to reading this book, were his baseball stats and The Pride of the Yankees, an adoring and largely inaccurate film.
Jonathan Eig has written what will be the definitive biography of Lou Gehrig for decades to come. Based on primary sources, some only recently rediscovered, this is the most well-rounded portrait of "The Pride of The Yankees" as there may ever be.
I found the Lou Gehrig who appeared on these pages to be---well, far more boring than legend makes him. Gehrig was the quintessential "quiet man," whose preferred activity away from baseball was fishing.
Despite Gehrig's fame, he was not a fan favorite, largely because he was painfully shy and hardly could carry on conversations with strangers. He was an impressively handsome wallflower who blushed and became tongue-tied when he spoke to women. He lacked charisma. The sportswriters that could make or break a player's public image largely ignored him except as an adjunct to Ruth. (He was known as "Babe Gehrig" in his earliest playing days for his prowess at the plate.) He was not quotable. His kindnesses were kept private. He had no vices (except pipesmoking). For most of his career he played in the shadow of Babe Ruth, who WAS eminently quotable, who loved the spotlight and engaged in showy philanthrophies, and who was an epicurean in all realms of hedonism. The public embraced the seemingly teddy bear-like Babe. After Ruth's departure, the press embraced Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, making him the next Yankee icon.
During all these years there was Gehrig, playing in game after game, setting records. His consecutive games record of 2,130 was eventually broken by Cal Ripken Jr. and was his hits record by Derek Jeter, but both these records stood for a half century, and in the absence of steroids and sports medicine. Not for nothing was he "The Iron Horse." In so many ways he was a living embodiment of all the best American virtues, an icon in and of himself. Still, the public kept their distance from the indefatigueable "Iron Man." As much as paragons are extolled, they are often unloved.
Yet, Gehrig was hardly inhuman. He came from an immigrant family that had buried three children, leaving him the sole surviving son. As a result, he was hugely overprotected. He grew up with the immigrant mentality of never risking his employment. Hence, for years the Yankees shamefully underpaid him, playing on his fears of being cut from the lineup. His father was a cipher, but his mother dominated him to such an extent that he often brought her along on Yankees road trips.
"Babe tipped the two call girls. Gehrig kissed his mother goodbye." This brief quote illustrates like nothing else the vast difference between the two men. The Babe was a celebrity, the Iron Horse a naive albeit extraordinary ballplayer. They were friends by dint of their sequential place in the Yankees' batting order, and by their incredible talents on the field which made them natural allies. The Yankees took advantage of this, touring them together and creating competing novelty teams (The "Busting Babes" and the "Laruppin' Lous") which they each captained in exhibition games.
Gehrig remained the sidekick for years, a relationship which suited the Babe perfectly, but did little for Lou. Yes, they were friends, but they were never truly close. No one seemed close to Lou Gehrig, except perhaps his mother. Gehrig stayed away from the usual male vices of liquor and women (Eig speculates that he may have been a virgin well into his twenties); no woman was good enough, not by Lou's lights but by his mother's. Mrs. Gehrig interfered successfully in every relationship Lou had until he was thirty when he married his wife. A grand war erupted between the two Mrs. Gehrigs that lasted their lifetimes.
Eleanor Twitchell Gehrig may have been played by Theresa Wright in the movies, but she was a harder, more savvy woman than the film portrays, a former flapper, and a somewhat jaded drinker. She was dedicated to having Lou promote himself (once, he was asked by "Huskies" cereal, a sponsor he endorsed, what his favorite breakfast was, and he answered "Wheaties!"), and she was dedicated to driving a wedge between mother and son. Eig never comments on the Gehrig marriage, but it seems that it was hardly bucolic---Gehrig suspected Ellie of having an affair with Babe Ruth, and never spoke to Ruth again. He seemed to have no close male friends, and no confidants.
Gehrig's rock solid dependability led Manager Joe McCarthy to name him team Captain, but (as Eig states) "he was not a fiery captain." He was helpful and friendly to the rookies and the younger men who sought the benefit of his experience, but he looked askance at some of the behaviors of his more seasoned teammates. He snubbed men he thought were not giving their all. He moped over his own errors, and often wept at losses, particularly when he failed to come through in the clutch.
Much of Gehrig's insecurity seems fearsomely misplaced. He played in every Yankee game from 1925 to 1941. He was a bulwark of the Yankees, and indeed a bulwark of the game of baseball as a whole. A power hitter par excellence, Eig gives us a picture of Gehrig around 1935: "His torso formed a perfect V . . . not an ounce of fat on his belly . . . his thighs were wider than most men's waists . . . calves the size of hams."
This seemingly superhuman specimen though, was carrying a ticking time bomb inside himself. Exactly when ALS first attacked Lou Gehrig is unclear. Eig postulates an early onset date of January 1938 and a late onset date of June 1938, but Eig also documents a few anomalous moments in Gehrig's life that may (or may not) have been harbingers of the disease---a chronic cramping backache which recurred at intervals in 1937, and "a strange tingle in his spine" that same year. Gehrig fell into a batting slump at the end of the '37 season. Of course, having played some 1800 consecutive baseball games to that point may have just been wearying.
ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) is a disease in which the motor neurons become brittle and nonfunctional. This leads to progressive muscle wastage, and eventual death. There is still no effective treatment available, and most patients die within five years.
ALS devastated Lou Gehrig. His power at the plate simply vanished overnight and his ability to field faded. Once he fell over backward from the momentum of a caught ball. Gehrig figured he needed more work, and pushed himself harder in batting practice, but at best he could wring out an occasional good game. Fans booed him and opposing players razzed him. The Yankees were mystified. All athletes eventually lose their edge, but Gehrig didn't lose his edge, he fell off the edge. Clearly, something was very wrong, but a kind of shared delusion of denial set in among teammates, friends, family, fans, and Gehrig himself, which carried him through the 1938 season. In photographs taken over that year Lou seems to be shrinking, but no one seemed to take notice.
By Opening Day of 1939, denial was no longer an option, but neither Joe McCarthy nor Gehrig wanted to face facts. Gehrig had often said he wanted to play 2500 consecutive games, and over the years McCarthy and Gehrig had cooperated in keeping the streak alive (once, a flu-ridden Gehrig took the first at-bat in a game, struck out messily, and retired to the clubhouse). In '39, Gehrig bravely played eight games, but his deteriorating skills were costing the Yankees their standing in the league. He benched himself in his 2,130th game, although he continued to dress for the games and captain the team. For a while.
In his decline, Gehrig caught the imagination and the sympathy of baseball fans everywhere. Where he couldn't command attention in his prime, where he was seen as remote at his best, the fans embraced him sympathetically as he lost his skills. Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939, during which Lou uttered the immortal phrase, "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" transformed him into a folk hero, vulnerable and gracious under pressure, and beloved. He blossomed briefly, becoming a gregarious raconteur, as though he wanted his baseball memoirs to be recorded before he lost the power of speech.
There was little that could be done for Lou, though he tried experimental drugs such as histamines and superdoses of Vitamin E. Interestingly, his correspondence to and fom his doctors in this period was full of encouraging though ultimately false reportage from his doctors, mostly for purposes of morale. Lou reported "improvement" himself from time to time, but every "improvement" was followed by a sharper fall-off. Nonetheless, he maintained a positive attitude, even in the face of his own mortality. He made the most he could of the last few months of his short life, working until April of 1941. He kept smiling, and kept reassuring everyone of his "50/50 chance," even as he obviously lay dying. Lou Gehrig passed away on June 2, 1941.
Although Lou Gehrig was a great ballplayer he did not attain personal greatness until faced with the ultimate crisis of his life. It is the quiet dignity with which he addressed his condition that made him the "Pride of the Yankees," and for which he is so well remembered.
Summary of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar -- struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? What fueled his ferocious competitive drive? How did he cope with the illness that abruptly ended his career and drained him of his legendary power? Drawing on dozens of new interviews and hundreds of pages of Gehrig's personal and previously unpublished letters, this definitive biography gives us a deeper, more intimate understanding of the life of an American hero.Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. A muscular but clumsy athlete, he grew up in New York City, the sole survivor among four siblings. He idolized his hardworking mother and remained devoted to her all his life. Shy and socially awkward, especially around women, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth. Gehrig's wife, Eleanor, was an ambitious young woman who pursued him and persuaded him to embrace his growing stardom. For years, rumors have persisted that she and Ruth had an affair, and that this was the event that ended the friendship between the two ballplayers.
Gehrig and Ruth formed the greatest slugging tandem in baseball history. They were the heart of the first great Yankee dynasty. After Ruth's retirement, Gehrig and a young Joe DiMaggio would begin a new era of Yankee dominance. But Luckiest Man reveals that Gehrig was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) much sooner than anyone believed, as early as the spring of 1938. Despite the illness, he didn't miss a game that year, keeping intact his astonishing consecutive-games streak, which stood for more than half a century.
After he was diagnosed, Gehrig's doctors allowed him to believe he had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving what they knew to be a fatal illness. The same doctor who wrote him encouraging letters secretly wrote Eleanor Gehrig to tell her the terrible truth. But even as his body deteriorated and Gehrig realized he was dying, he never despaired. In his final months Gehrig proved himself truly to be the Iron Horse. The man who spoke spontaneously from the heart when he gave his great speech at his farewell in Yankee Stadium continued to sound the same themes: that he'd led a good life and had much to be thankful for.
In Luckiest Man Jonathan Eig brings to life a figure whose shyness and insecurity obscured his greatness during his lifetime. Gehrig emerges on these pages as more human and heroic than ever.
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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