Ailing Gehrig Put Brakes to Streak Himself

The first symptoms were a lack of power in his swing, dropped catsup bottles, shuffling feet and trembling hands.

Clearly, something was wrong with baseball’s Iron Horse.

Sixty years ago today, Lou Gehrig took himself out of the New York Yankee lineup, after having played every game since June 1, 1925. He’d played 2,130 consecutive games, a record considered unapproachable . . . until Cal Ripken Jr. came along.

His disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, had been slowly breaking down his central nervous system, probably beginning sometime in 1938.

Gehrig, who had a career batting average of .340, batted .295 in 1938 and for the first time took a pay cut, from a career high of $39,000 to $36,000.

When the 1939 season began, teammates noticed that Gehrig had lost coordination.

After a day off before the Yankees began their first western swing, Manager Joe McCarthy found Gehrig waiting for him in the lobby of the team’s hotel in Detroit. According to Eleanor Gehrig, in her 1976 book, “My Luke and I,” the following conversation occurred:

Gehrig: I’m benching myself, Joe.

McCarthy: Why?

Gehrig: For the good of the team. . . . I just can’t seem to get going. Nobody has to tell me how bad I’ve been.

A month later, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on his 36th birthday, Gehrig learned he had ALS. He died two years later.

Also on this date: In 1917, baseball had its only double no-hitter, when Cincinnati’s Fred Toney and Chicago’s Hippo Vaughn pitched no-hitters. Cincinnati won it in the 10th inning when Jim Thorpe--yes, that Jim Thorpe--drove in the winning run with the game’s only hit, a single. . . . In 1954, Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals hit five of his 475 home runs. Against the Giants in New York, he hit three in the first game of the doubleheader, two in the second and finished the day six for eight with nine RBIs and 21 total bases. . . . In 1967, the Detroit Pistons signed top draft pick Jimmy Walker of Providence College to a four-year, $250,000 contract.