Baseball remembers Lou Gehrig
Scheffler dominates. Stark wins Open. Yankees salvage pride. Liberty destroys Sun
Good morning, all.
Today is Lou Gehrig Day throughout all of baseball. It is also an opportunity for the community to bring awareness to the disease that cut Gehrig’s life short 17 days shy of his 39th birthday on June 2, 1941.
It is funny how baseball statistics work. For decades Gehrig held the consecutive game playing streak of 2,130 games. Thus the nickname the “Iron Horse.” Cal Ripken Jr. came along and broke it in the 1990s, eventually finishing with 2,632 games played in a row. I don’t know about you, but after all these years I can immediately tell you the Gehrig consecutive games number. I had to look up Ripken’s number of games.
Maybe it’s a generational thing or it could be the legend of Lou Gehrig.
There have been numerous books written about Gehrig. My favorite is The Luckiest Man, by Jonathan Eig.
One of my favorite stories about Gehrig came from the “Voice of the Yankees,” Mel Allen, who was the master of ceremonies on Lou Gehrig Day, July 4, 1939, when Gehrig gave his famous speech. The next season, before a Yankees game, Allen related how he and Gehrig were sitting in the dugout, when Lou told him how much it meant to him, listening to Allen broadcasting the ballgames on the radio. Allen said he had to excuse himself, then went into the runway and began to cry, becoming emotional to think his broadcasts had such an impact on the great Lou Gehrig.
The Yankees are off today, but they will place a number 4 patch on their uniforms for tomorrow night’s game against Cleveland in honor of the Iron Horse.
Here are some other DAN ON SPORTS top stories for Monday, June 2, 2025:
Scheffler now in Tiger Woods’ company
Maja Stark wins U.S. Women’s Open
Yankees salvage pride; beat Dodgers
Coaches at war. Coastal Carolina baseball coach rips Florida coach
Liberty destroys Sun
NBA ends run on TNT
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DAN