The life of Lou Gehrig: The Iron Horse – Part 1
The Iron Horse as Lou Gehrig was better known was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He only had a 17 year career, which would have flourished had he not developed Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which weakened
him to a point where he had to voluntarily stop himself from playing a game that he loved with a passion.
During the passage of his career he only played for the New York Yankees. His statistics are very impressive. In 17 seasons he gathered a tremendous 1,995 runs, an on-base percentage of .447, a batting average of .340 and his slugging percentage was .632.
Out of the top six RBI seasons in baseball history, he has the honour of having three of the seasons to his name. He was the first player of the recent baseball era who hit four home-runs in a game and he was considered as the baseball’s Number one batsman.
Gehrig impressed the Yankees scout Paul Krichell so much that he was given a Yankees contract within two months from the first time the scout saw him play. He personally witnessed Gehrig hit some of the longest home-runs he had ever seen which also included
a 450-foot home-run at Columbia’s South Field, where the ball ended up on 116th Street and Broadway.
Although Gehrig joined the Yankees in the 1923 season, he was kept in the backdrop for his first two seasons. His breakthrough came in 1926 at 23 years of age where he batted .313 with 16 home-runs, an impressive 112 RBIs, 47 doubles and 20 triples.
Every player has a career year during his time, by which he is remembered for a very long time. Gehrig’s career year came in 1927. During that season he had 218 hits, 52 doubles, and 18 triples along with 47 home-runs. He hit .373 with a slugging percentage
of .765 and surpassed Babe Ruth’s record when he scored 175 runs. He seemed to be trying to follow Ruth’s records because he came second to Ruth’s 119 extra base hits record when he has 117 and came third to Ruth’s 457 bases when he had 447 total bases.
Gehrig knew how to make runs and he did just that as he had 509 RBIs from 1930 till 1932. Out of the 14 seasons he played, he had 13 back-to-back seasons with a 100 or more RBIs. Gehrig had a tremendous record as he batted .350 for six seasons and .349 for
a seventh season. In 11 seasons Gehrig had more than 100 walks, 200 or more hits in eight seasons and scored more than 150 RBIs in seven seasons. Gehrig hit more than 40 home-runs in five seasons.
Lou Gehrig’s determination towards the game can be proved by the fact that he had 2,130 consecutive games and some of which he continued even with injuries. An example of this is when in 1933, Washington Senators’ pitcher struck Gehrig in the head and nearly
knocked him out but he recovered quickly and remained in the game. Later X-rays disclosed that Gehrig had suffered quite a few injuries during his playing career, which included several fractures but he didn’t let the information be known and remained in the
line-up, despite the injuries. This is the main reason as he was known as “The Iron Horse”.
Continued in Part 2
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