Product Description

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 Drawing on dozens of new interviews and hundreds of pages of Gehrig's personal and previously unpublished letters, this definitive biography gives us a deeper, more intimate understanding of the life of an American hero.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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52261 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-28
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.com Review
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

From Publishers Weekly
Although his record of playing in 2,130 consecutive Major League baseball games (from 1925 to 1939) was eventually broken in 1995, Gehrig is still remembered as one of the sport's greatest figures. But Eig, a Wall Street Journal special correspondent, shows that the life of the"Iron Horse" wasn't quite as squeaky clean as Gary Cooper portrayed it to be in the 1943 film Pride of the Yankees. Still, the blemishes are strikingly minor in comparison to those of today's star athletes: the worst anyone can really say about Gehrig is that he didn't like spending money, or that sometimes he'd just barely appear in a game in order to continue his streak. This meticulous biography also tracks the Yankee first baseman's close family ties and the tensions between his German immigrant mother and his publicity-savvy wife, as well as Gehrig's friction with teammate Babe Ruth. There's a certain monotony to the seasons during Gehrig's peak years, but Eig manages to find lively anecdotes. Moreover, the final chapters, in which Gehrig slowly dies from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, present his story's medical aspects with powerful sensitivity. Holding its own against recent high-profile baseball bios (e.g., Richard Ben Cramer's portrait of Joe DiMaggio), Eig's book reminds readers that Gehrig's accomplishments are inseparable from the dignity of his character. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
On June 2, 1941, just days short of his 38th birthday, Henry Louis Gehrig died at his house in the pleasant New York City neighborhood of Riverdale. The disease that killed him, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was almost entirely unknown at the time, to the extent, Jonathan Eig writes, that "many doctors in the United States had never heard of ALS." Gehrig, the great first baseman of the New York Yankees -- indeed, commonly conceded to have been the greatest first baseman in baseball history -- changed all that. In the years after his death, ALS became near-universally known as Lou Gehrig's disease, as it is to this day; for all the advances medical science has made in the six decades since Gehrig's death, "his" disease still has no known cure.

On July 4, 1939, two years before his death, a severely weakened Gehrig returned to Yankee Stadium, not long after he had announced his retirement from baseball. The Yankees were determined to hold a day in his honor. Gehrig, who was shy and reserved, dreaded the occasion, but he rose to it. Wearing the Yankees' uniform, he approached the microphones after various tributes had been paid and gifts presented, and stood there in silence. Finally, he spoke. "For the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break," he told the packed ballpark. "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He saluted his teammates, his parents, his wife, and then said: "So I close in saying that I might have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for. Thank you."

Stars of sport often are called heroes but only rarely live up to the name. Gehrig came about as close as any except Roberto Clemente, the magnificent Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder who was killed in a December 1972 plane crash while flying emergency supplies to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. Gehrig's heroism lay in the stoic courage with which he accepted his disease and the calm good humor with which he lived out his days. He was an exemplar. One of the first books given to me by my parents (who were not baseball fans) was called Lou Gehrig: Boy Hero; the sentiment expressed in its subtitle is still widely felt and was given voice by Cal Ripken Jr. when, in 1995, he broke Gehrig's "unbreakable" record of 2,130 consecutive games and told the crowd at Camden Yards in Baltimore: "Tonight, I stand here, overwhelmed, as my name is linked with the great and courageous Lou Gehrig."

So it is entirely appropriate that, after all these years, Gehrig is the subject of a full biography that treats him not just as a superb athlete but also as an admirable, if far from flawless, human being. Many books have been written about him in the past, including biographies by the (now forgotten but once notable) journalists Frank Graham and Paul Gallico, but they are standard sports-page fare, closer to hagiography than to biography. Eig, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, does better. His prose rarely rises above competence, but his research is thorough, and he pays due attention to Gehrig's few shortcomings as well as his many strengths. Eig's biography doesn't do quite as well by Gehrig as Robert Creamer's Babe did by that other famous Yankee, Babe Ruth, but Luckiest Man is good, solid work.

One important point stressed by Eig but glossed over by most others who have written about Gehrig is that for his entire life he was a mama's boy. His parents, Heinrich and Christina, were poor German immigrants whose life together started in Yorkville, the Upper East Side neighborhood that was then Manhattan's German enclave. Lou was born on June 19, 1903, a bit less than a year after the death of the first Gehrig child, Anna; his sister Sophie was born in July of the next year. Heinrich worked irregularly at best, so it fell to the "muscular, unemotional" Christina to keep the family together and to earn money as a cleaning woman and a cook for the wealthy. To Lou she was a heroine, and to her he was the object of unstinting devotion.

Lou inherited his mother's stocky build and strong legs. "Each thigh was bigger than many a man's waist, each calf the size of a Christmas ham": Strong legs (along with keen eyes) are a hitter's most important asset, and Gehrig's legs were simply awesome. He was too big to be graceful and was susceptible to mental lapses, so when he started playing baseball as a boy, he was sent to first base; that, along with right field, is where bad fielders are hidden. He was an incredibly hard worker, though, and by the time he got to Columbia University he had begun the process of polishing himself into a better-than-average first-baseman when in the field, an asset rather than a liability, a thinking man's ballplayer if not a baseball genius.

Gehrig signed with the Yankees in April 1923 for a total of just under $3,000. To the Gehrigs it was a windfall, "a life-altering payday." Lou continued to live with his parents and immediately became the family breadwinner. Before long he moved his parents out to the suburbs and set them up comfortably if not lavishly, a manner to which they quickly became accustomed. Gehrig spent a brief breaking-in period with the Hartford Senators in Connecticut, where he tore up the league; by the end of the 1923 season he was back in New York, this time for good.

Before one of that season's final games, Wally Pipp, the regular Yankee first baseman, wrenched an ankle, and Gehrig was sent in to play for him. Legend has it that this was when Gehrig's celebrated streak began, but that didn't happen until well into the 1924 season, when Pipp was benched and Gehrig sent in. Pipp never played another inning for the Yankees: "Lou Gehrig and Wally Pipp are forever linked, like the tortoise and the hare. But for all its mythical resonance, the legend does Gehrig a disservice. In truth, he didn't get Pipp's job because the older man had a headache or grew lazy. He got it because he was young and eager and hit the ball twice as hard as the player he replaced. He had an opportunity, and he seized it."

The Yankees of that time were "rough guys," according to one of the many players who passed through the clubhouse: "They were swashbuckling, tobacco-chewing, cursing tough-guys. They were farmers, country boys." They liked Gehrig well enough but didn't understand him. He was "a worrier, obsessed with pleasing others," he "made little effort to get to know his teammates or the reporters who covered the team," he didn't carouse or womanize, he "did not so much set aside his self-doubt as manage it," he "never grumbled and never cried for attention," he was "sensitive and uncommunicative," to "shopkeepers and delivery boys, he was known as a tightwad," he "took comfort working for strict bosses and following precise rules." Gradually he eased up a bit, and when he became famous his insecurity diminished, but to the end he was sensitive, thoughtful, wary.

He was rarely seen with women, but he did open up to one, Mary Loeb, the wife of a respected sportswriter: "He liked women, he told Mary, and he wanted to marry someday. But it was complicated. His mother had already suffered so much. She had lost three children and had worked herself to exhaustion to take care of the family, and without much help from her husband. Gehrig could never repay her, and he could never stand to disappoint her. He loved his mother with a great passion, he said, but he wondered sometimes if that devotion would keep him from ever loving anyone else."

Finally, in 1932, he met Eleanor Grace Twitchell. She seems to have had a good deal more experience of life (and presumably love) than he, and was in danger of becoming "an aging flapper," but he fell for her, and a year later they were married, to his mother's considerable unhappiness. There was "an especially explosive chemistry between these two women" that never went away. Eleanor was not the ideal wife, but Gehrig seems to have figured out how to live happily with her, and she with him, and the marriage grew more and more solid -- especially after 1939, when his ALS was diagnosed. In his time of need she was the wife he needed -- strong, supportive, caring for him without babying him -- and after his death she kept the flame burning. She wrote a popular book about her life with him and "played a powerful role behind the scenes" while the poignant movie about him, "Pride of the Yankees," was written and filmed.

That Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth played on the same team for fully a decade, usually batting one behind the other, is one of the genuinely amazing facts, or oddities, in American sports history. If two other players of comparable stature did the same in baseball or any other sport, they do not come readily to mind. The two men were friendly but never close, fell out for a while -- Eig raises the possibility that the priapic Babe may have fooled around with Eleanor -- but were friends again as Gehrig's end drew near. More than Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson or anyone else, they defined the New York Yankees for the entire nation, and thus played roles in American culture at least as large as those they played on the diamond.
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Great ballplayer, and a great person
If you're looking for an exhaustive biography of Gehrig, one of the best to ever grace a diamond, look no further. Eig has written a wonderful book that gives great insight into not only Gehrig the player, but also Gehrig the man.

It's obvious from the discussion of his upbringing that Gehrig was not a "typical" Yankee star, one who would enjoy the bright lights and fame. As a child, and continuing into his adult life, he was a shy, modest person who wanted only to work hard and do his best. His relationship, or lack thereof, with fellow superstar Babe Ruth, is given a lot of coverage, and is one of the more interesting aspects of the book. Given Gehrig's background and social anxieties, it's not really surprising that he and Ruth (along with other teammates) never seemed to mesh.

While the coverage given to his seasons with the Yankees is comprehensive, it's the anecdotes and off-the-field stuff that really add to the existing knowledge we have of Gehrig. And even when we know towards the end of the book exactly what's going to happen, Eig still manages to present the onset of his illness and eventual death dramatically, without simply playing on emotions. I was surprised to learn that his ALS had begun its onset in '38, and not a year later when he was forced to call it quits.

Eig presents Gehrig well, without romanticizing him or turning his book into a hagiography. While I think any baseball fan will love this book, I don't think being a fan of the sport is a prerequisite to enjoyment. This is a great biography of a genuinely good man, one who always seemed unsure about being in the spotlight. Highly recommended.

The Definitive Book on Lou Gehrig
I have read other previous biographies on Lou Gehrig such as Ray Robinson's effort entitled "Iron Horse" and Frank Graham's book entitled "Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero". Both books are well done, but Jonathan Eig's book is the most in-depth effort on Gehrig to date. Gehrig had an over-bearing and protective mother and a passive insecure father. While Lou had great admiration and respect for his mother, her influence probably contributed to Lou's insecurities regarding himself. Lou's mother viewed his wife as a threat to her control over her son, and both mother and mother-in-law were in constant conflict over the son and husband. Even after Lou's death the wrangling continued over Lou's estate. The author provides ample coverage of Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day on July 4, 1939, when Gehrig delivered his Gettysburg Address speech at Yankee Stadium between games of a doubleheader between the Yankees and the Washington Senators. Significant coverage is also provided on ALS, the disease that now carries Gehrig's name. Gehrig always expressed his appreciation for the care he received at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and exchanged letters with physicians in charge of his care. He always looked for miniscule signs that may indicate the disease wasn't getting any worse, but by the spring of 1941 he knew it was just a matter of time before the inevitable took place. This book is also a rare treat in that it isn't laced with profanity. If you have a young reader around ten years old who is reading at an advanced level, feel free to give them this book as a gift. It will be one that will be appreciated for years to come.

Wonderful old-style baseball, a world away from steroids
I'm not as avid a sports fan as many of my friends, and I haven't read many sports bios. This book, though, surpasses the usual expectations for sports books. Reading it is like reading a vivid fictional book with many fascinating characters who seem bigger than life yet with imperfections and flaws, too.

I'm sure any baseball/Yankees fan who like to read would get a lot out of this book. Anyone who is curious about Lou Gehrig should obviously read it. But its appeal for me went beyond baseball because it just tells the story of a humble and great man who lived a short, brave life and struggled with a terrible illness he could not understand. These are all powerful themes in and of themselves, but Eig clearly uses the English language to make Gehrig's story even more inviting. I kept reading waiting to get to a dull sentence or a cliche, but did not...it's just page after page of lean, tight writing and colorful detail, like a really good New York Times feature story.

Eig tells an old story but in so many ways it is timely. It's pretty interesting to read about Gehrig and his baseball friends who played for the love of the game in much simpler times, for money that may have been big in their time but not hugely extravagant, the way sports contracts are today. They didn't complain about fans or the media. Baseball was starting to be a business, yes, but not Big Business. The players didn't take steroids or say that anything about their behavior was justified because they were just "entertainers." They were honest and hard-working athletes. They signed autographs and felt flattered to do it. It's just so refreshing to learn about how baseball used to be.

The final parts of the book, about his ALS, are grim and tragic but tell so much about the strength of Gehrig, and the author found a lot of material (like letters to Gehrig's doctor, talking about the disease). It's all fascinating, and makes you understand ALS and feel for its victims.

To sum up, I'm glad I bought this and think you would not be sorry to read it if you are excited by baseball, enjoy solid biographies, the history of the 1920s-1930s, books about heroic fights against illness, or if you just like colorful-but-true writing that's not at all difficult to read.