Facts about Lou Gehrig
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| The Iron Horse |
- Birth name: Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig or Henry Louis Gehrig
- Nickname: The Iron Horse
- Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig (June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941) was an American baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s, chiefly remembered for his prowess as a hitter, his consecutive games-played record and its subsequent longevity, and the pathos of his farewell from baseball at age 36, when he was stricken with a fatal neurological disease.
- Height: 6' (1.83 m)
- Parents: Heinrich Gehrig and Christina Fack.
- His father Heinrich was a sheet metal worker by trade, but frequently unemployed due to alcoholism, and his mother Christina was a maid, the main breadwinner and disciplinarian in the family.
- Young Gehrig helped his mother with her work, doing tasks such as folding laundry and picking up supplies from the local stores.
- Wife: Eleanor Twitchel
- Popularly called "The Iron Horse" for his durability, Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams (23).
- Hobbies while growing up: football, baseball, gymnastics, soccer, ice skating, swimming, billiards, marbles
- Lou Gehrig and Chuck Klein are the only players to amass as many as 100 extra-base hits in a season more than once.
- In early 1925, the Yankees offered to trade Gehrig to the Boston Red Sox for first baseman Phil Todt to repay Boston for the blockbuster Babe Ruth trade a few years earlier. The Red Sox turned the Yankees down.
- Lou Gehrig attended Columbia University on a scholarship to play football, not baseball.
- In 1943, during World War II, a Liberty ship was named after legendary baseball player Lou Gehrig. The Merchant Marine troop transport ship carried 480 men and 120 vehicles. One year later it was involved in Operation Neptune. On Gehrig's birthday the ship landed in Normandy, 13 days after D-Day.
- In the first Ladies Day ever held at Yankee Stadium, on April 29, 1938, Lou Gehrig was greeted with cheers of "We Want a Homer"from the crowd, which featured nearly 5,000 women in the total of 12,395. Gehrig didn't deliver a homer, but his two hits helped the Yankees defeat the Red Sox, 6-4.
- July 4, 1939 was declared "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium. It was on this occasion that Lou Gehrig made the famous farewell speech, later featured in the film Pride of the Yankees, when he declared, "...today, I consider myself, the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
- In 1969 Gehrig was voted the greatest first baseman of all time by the Baseball Writers' Association, and was the leading vote-getter on the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, chosen by fans in 1999.
- Gehrig accumulated 1,995 runs batted in (RBI) in 17 seasons, with a career batting average of .340, on-base percentage of .447, and slugging percentage of .632.
- In the 1942 film Pride of the Yankees, Lou Gehrig is removed from his position at first base during game in Detroit, thus "breaking" his streak of 2,130 consecutive games. However, the rules state that a streak is not interrupted just because a player doesn't come to bat.
- Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
