Luckiest Man by Jonathan Eig
The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Jonathan Eig’s book, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, is essential reading for any baseball fan and not just fans of the New York Yankees. His writing was deservingly awarded with the CASEY Award for the best baseball book of 2005. If I had read the book nearly two decades ago, he’d have probably won the Solzy Award for Best Baseball Book, too.
Lou Gehrig retired after playing in 2,130 consecutive games. If his health had let him, he would have played in 2,500 consecutive games. Nobody could foresee the future when he delivered his comments back in January 1937.
Eig didn’t just draw on new interviews when he wrote the book but he had access to unpublished letters written either to or from Gehrig. Unfortunately for Eig or baseball fans in general, Gehrig’s Mayo Clinic case files are permanently sealed. Even without access to the files, Luckiest Man is still a Hall of Fame book. Because of the book, we have a better idea of when Gehrig first started displaying symptoms.
It’s a real page turner, keeping our attention as we continually read chapter by chapter. Take it from me—there were nights when I should have gone to bed but much like the case of a TV binge, it soon became a case of just one more chapter. Sure enough, I was able to finish most of the book heading into Monday morning. I don’t want to use the word entertaining because reading about a baseball player who suffered a bad break is anything but, especially when they are dying of an incurable disease. Regardless, I was drawn into learning more about Gehrig and his life. Sure enough, I did.
In as much as the book is about Gehrig’s life on the field, it’s also about his life off the field, at home with parents Heinrich and Christina Gehrig and later, wife Eleanor Gehrig. He was so close with his parents, especially his mom, that he was still living with them while playing for the New York Yankees! Even though he could have easily rented his own apartment or bought his own house, it didn’t happen until a number of years later when he married Eleanor. But even then, there was considerable friction between Christina and Eleanor. It’s quite possible that Lou could have settled down years earlier but none of the women were ever acceptable to his mother.
Can you imagine a universe where Gehrig played for John McGraw and the New York Giants? It’s hard to believe it but there’s a universe where that might have happened. Unfortunately, Gehrig’s defense was off that day and he would ultimately be signed by the New York Yankees. After playing high school ball, he played baseball at Columbia. However, his career was almost derailed by playing minor league baseball. College rules were just as strict back then although he was suspended from playing during his freshman year. Anyway, it was at Columbia where Yankee scout Paul Krichell was impressed by his Babe Ruth-esque offense. Gehrig was just as impressive as a pitcher but he was destined to play first base.
Gehrig would find himself moving between the Yankees and the minor leagues for a few seasons. He would play some in the outfield before ultimately replacing Wally Pipp at first base. A position that he maintained until late April 1939. Reading about Gehrig’s streak was very fascinating as things were different back then. Unlike today, MLB didn’t require playing 4.5-5 innings for a game to be made official. As such, there were instances—especially in 1938 or even 1939—where Gehrig would start at first base and not even take an at-bat or vice versa. He played for a pair of Hall of Fame managers in Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy—the latter of which came up with his own ten commandments of baseball.
Gehrig had some words about the concept of night baseball: “Real baseball should be played in the daytime, in the sunshine.” He was long dead before the Yankees hosted their first night game in Yankee Stadium. At the very least, he was understanding of people working during the daytime and wanting to see baseball at night. As Eig notes, night games had a positive impact on attendance—and ultimately, the bottom line. When Crosley Field started hosting night games, the Cincinnati Reds averaged 18,600 fans during seven night games, well north of the less than 3,000 fans attending games played during the daytime.
Eig touches on The Pride of the Yankees. While it’s more than a baseball movie, the film itself does have its own flaws. I touched on it in my own review of the film on Lou Gehrig Day in 2021. That’s why I’m so glad to have finally read a book that I’ve owned for about a decade. Unlike films, books don’t have the problem of having to cover an entire life in however many pages. Films, by their nature, are just not meant to be life-spanning. While I recommend the film for the pop culture impact of it all, I’d go farther by recommend reading the book before watching the film. Not that this is a case of whether the book is better or not because Jonathan Eig’s stupendous book was not around when Samuel Goldwyn produced the Oscar winner. But I digress.
Before ALS cut his career short, Gehrig finished his career as one of the greatest players of all time. Even now, he is still the greatest first baseman of all time as Albert Pujols trails him closely in both WAR (113.7-101.5) and JAWS (90.7-81.6). He took home two AL MVP Awards (1927, 1936) but finished fifth in voting after taking home the AL Triple Crown in 1934. Detroit Tigers catcher Mickey Cochrane was won the award that year after managing the Tigers to the AL pennant. It wasn’t until the 1980s in which the BBWAA started issuing awards for Manager of the Year. Gehrig was a part of six World Series championships, including the 1927 Murderer’s Row squad—a team that had six Hall of Fame players in Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Waite Hoyt, Tony Lazzeri, Earle Combs, and Herb Pennock. His career didn’t just link him to Ruth but Joe DiMaggio came up in the mid-1930s.
If not for ALS, he would have probably played into his early 40s and finished as a member of the exclusively 3000 Hit and 500 Home Run clubs. Alas, we can only wonder what-if. It didn’t stop Bill James from speculating what the numbers could have been: 3928 hits, 689 home runs, 2879 RBI (higher than current recordholder Hank Aaron), 2475 walks (second only to Barry Bonds), and a career .330 batting average (ten points lower than his career BA). It sounds so absurd, right? It just speaks to how amazing Gehrig was as a ballplayer. There’s a reason he was the #1 vote-getter when MLB announced the All-Century team roster in 1999. His 1,207,992 votes topped Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Johnny Bench, and Joe DiMaggio.
Jonathan Eig’s Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig is a Hall of Fame book for a Hall of Fame player and one of the best baseball books ever written.