September 5, 2008;
At the end of this baseball season, we will say goodbye to Yankee Stadium. My favorite memory of the ballpark comes from a game played 70 years ago this month. I wasn't there, but I have a picture of it in my mind, and I will cling to it when they tear up the sod and knock down the walls this winter.
On Sept. 27, 1938, a cool and cloudy day in the Bronx, Lou Gehrig stepped into the batter's box to hit against Dutch Leonard of the Washington Senators. It was a meaningless Tuesday afternoon game. All but 2,700 of the stadium's seats were empty.
Leonard threw, Mr. Gehrig swung, and the ball flew into the right-field bleachers, giving the Yankees' Iron Horse the 493rd home run of his career. It would be his last.
Baseball's legendary individual performances are well known: In 1921, Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs -- more than eight entire teams. In 1941, Ted Williams hit for a .406 average. In 2001, say what you will, Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire's home run record and Babe Ruth's slugging-percentage record. Those were great feats. But for my money, nothing compares to 1938.
That year, Gehrig played with advanced symptoms of a brutal and deadly disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known today as Lou Gehrig's disease. He not only appeared in every one of the Yankees' 157 regular-season games, he played brilliantly, hitting .295, with 29 homers, 114 runs batted in, a .410 on-base average, and a .523 slugging percentage. Alex Rodriguez this year has produced roughly equivalent numbers.
Throughout the entire season, Gehrig knew something was wrong with his body; he just didn't know what. He arrived in St. Petersburg for spring training after filming a singing-cowboy movie called "Rawhide" (check it out on Netflix; it's a hoot). He entered the season as the highest-paid player in the game, with a one-year contract for $39,000, and saying that he thought his body, always the game's most solid, ought to hold at least a few more years. He was 34 and had played for 13 years without missing a game.
His first swings of spring were feeble. He popped a few high and dribbled some into the dirt before his hands began to ache. "I'll get the feel of this thing in a hurry," he told a reporter that day.
He never did, though. All that spring he felt clumsy. He tripped. He dropped easy throws. He developed blisters and bone bruises on his hands, and began taping foam to the bottom of his bat handle to reduce the pain.
In hindsight, all of these are likely symptoms of ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, shutting down messages from the brain to the body's muscles. Most victims survive only two or three years after diagnosis. Gehrig's muscles were withering away. As he tried to compensate, he probably squeezed the bat more tightly than usual, causing the blisters and bruises.
Most people with ALS don't know they have it for the first year. At this moment, there are about 5,000 people in the United States walking around without a clue. A year or so from now, when they are diagnosed, they will look back and say, "Oh, yeah, so that's why I had trouble with the belt on my son's car seat." Gehrig was no different -- except that he was a professional athlete who was being watched and criticized every day. Nevertheless, he kept going. What else could he do? He assumed the malfunctions were a result of age, or a virus, or perhaps his imagination.
By late April, reporters were commenting that Gehrig seemed to have lost strength. Maybe he should have been working out instead of cavorting all winter in Hollywood, sportswriters sniped. His manager, Joe McCarthy, moved him out of the cleanup spot in the batting order into the sixth position.
Though his body was growing weaker by the day, Gehrig was so well-conditioned and so gifted an athlete that he managed to adapt. He started slapping at the ball instead of trying to crush it, and his batting average climbed. He put in an order with Hillerich & Bradsby Co. for some lighter bats, which helped him regain some of his power.
When I was researching my biography of Gehrig, I interviewed Charlie Wagner, who pitched for the Red Sox in 1938. He said Gehrig "could still get up and bump that ball," but he seemed to be stumbling when he ran. Gehrig was surprisingly speedy, and you can probably win a bet by asking someone to name the Yankees' all-time leader in triples. It's Gehrig, who hit 163 of them. But in 1938 he looked like he was running in snow shoes. He talked to reporters about his troubles. He seemed mystified, even angry at times. But he never lost his temper, never blew up at the reporters who zinged him, never criticized his manager for moving him out of the cleanup spot.
The Yankees went on to sweep the Cubs in the 1938 World Series. Gehrig managed four singles in four games. The next year, he tried again to play, but only briefly. By then it was clear that something was seriously wrong. He was diagnosed in June of 1939. On July 4, he made his famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, calling himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He bowed out with the grace, dignity, and humility that had defined his career.
He died two years later, just shy of his 38th birthday. Gehrig will be recalled for his speech, which was surely the most touching moment in Yankee Stadium's history.
But I prefer to remember him before he was stooped by disease. I prefer to picture him on that long-sleeved autumn day in September 1938. What comfort he must have felt when ball met bat, the resonance of it running from his hands up into his arms. The fans heard the sound. They watched the ball fly high and deep, and when it ponged into the near-empty bleachers they looked back to the field and saw good-old Lou, head down, trotting around the bases one last time. Never before had such a life-and-death struggle played out on a baseball diamond. For that day, at least, Gehrig was the winner.
They can tear down the park, but they can't take that away from me.
Jonathan Eig is the author of "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig" and "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season."
