Luckiest man : the life and death of Lou Gehrig / Jonathan Eig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eig, Jonathan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gehrig, Lou, 1903-1941.

Gehrig, Lou.

Baseball players--United States--Biography.

Baseball players.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--Patients.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

United States.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--Patients--United States--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

viii, 420 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Simon & Schuster, [2005]

Summary:

Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar-struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? What fueled his ferocious competitive drive? How did he cope with the illness that abruptly ended his career and drained him of his legendary power? Drawing on dozens of new interviews and hundreds of pages of Gehrig's personal and previously unpublished letters, this definitive biography gives us a deeper, more intimate understanding of the life of an American hero.

Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. A muscular but clumsy athlete, he grew up in New York City, the sole survivor among four siblings. He idolized his hardworking mother and remained devoted to her all his life. Shy and socially awkward, especially around women, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth. Gehrig's wife, Eleanor, was an ambitious young woman who pursued him and persuaded him to embrace his growing stardom. For years, rumors have persisted that she and Ruth had an affair, and that this was the event that ended the friendship between the two ballplayers.

Gehrig and Ruth formed the greatest slugging tandem in baseball history. They were the heart of the first great Yankee dynasty. After Ruth's retirement, Gehrig and a young Joe DiMaggio would begin a new era of Yankee dominance. But Luckiest Man reveals that Gehrig was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) much sooner than anyone believed, as early as the spring of 1938. Despite the illness, he didn't miss a game that year, keeping intact his astonishing consecutive-games streak, which stood for more than half a century.

After he was diagnosed, Gehrig's doctors allowed him to believe he had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving what they knew to be a fatal illness. The same doctor who wrote him encouraging letters secretly wrote Eleanor Gehrig to tell her the terrible truth. But even as his body deteriorated and Gehrig realized he was dying, he never despaired. In his final months Gehrig proved himself truly to be the Iron Horse. The man who spoke spontaneously from the heart when he gave his great speech at his farewell in Yankee Stadium continued to sound the same themes: that he'd led a good life and had much to be thankful for.

In Luckiest Man Jonathan Eig brings to life a figure whose shyness and insecurity obscured his greatness during his lifetime. Gehrig emerges on these pages as more human and heroic than ever.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Survivor 3

Chapter 2 "Babe" Gehrig 13

Chapter 3 At Columbia 27

Chapter 4 The Behemoth of Bing 41

Chapter 5 Goodbye, Mr. Pipp 54

Chapter 6 Coming of Age 69

Chapter 7 Sinner and Saint 82

Chapter 8 Barnstorming Days 107

Chapter 9 A Charmed Life 118

Chapter 10 The Crash 128

Chapter 11 Iron Horse 141

Chapter 12 Courtship 161

Chapter 13 Out of the Shadows 177

Chapter 14 A Night at the Opera 192

Chapter 15 The Next Big Thing 204

Chapter 16 Lord of the Jungle 218

Chapter 17 Strange Times 233

Chapter 18 The Longest Summer 245

Chapter 19 Like a Match Burning Out 262

Chapter 20 Last Chance 277

Chapter 21 Pitchers Once Feared His Bat 287

Chapter 22 The Bitter with the Sweet 292

Chapter 23 Luckiest Man 310

Chapter 24 The Bureaucrat 320

Chapter 25 Our Boy Is Pretty Discouraged 329

Chapter 26 He Was Baseball 351

Appendix Lou Gehrig's Career Statistics 369.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-398) and index.

ISBN:

0743245911

OCLC:

56685155