Sixty years ago today, Lou Gehrig strode to the plate for what would be his final at-bat in baseball. The crowd roared its approval. Gehrig was so racked with pain that day, he didn't want to play. But he was moved by the fans' demonstration and the same obligation that pushed him to play in 2,130 consecutive games.
This dramatic scene wasn't played out in Yankee Stadium. It happened in Kansas City. On a hot summer day, June 12, 1939, fans had no way of knowing that Gehrig would never swing the bat again, that the only other time he would wear those Yankee pinstripes would be less than a month later during his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech on July 4. No one really knew this was the end, an anonymous finish to an unforgettable career.
Conventional wisdom and most history books suggest that Gehrig's career ended May 2, 1939. It was then that Gehrig, mysteriously slumping through a .143 season, pulled himself out of the lineup and ended his remarkable "Iron Man" streak. A bit lesser known, though, is the fact that Gehrig participated in an exhibition game pitting the New York Yankees against their top farm club, the old Kansas City Blues, more than a month later.
"I was fortunate enough," said Billy Hitchcock, who played third base at Ruppert Stadium that day for the Blues, "to see Lou Gehrig play his last game." Clearly, it wasn't vintage Gehrig. He played just three innings, took his spot as the No. 8 hitter in the lineup and went to the plate for only one at-bat. His body, frail and weakened, had already been racked by ALS. The disease -- formally called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis but now known simply as "Lou Gehrig's disease" -- would kill Gehrig two years later, just a few weeks short of his 38th birthday.
At the time of the game, though, doctors had not yet diagnosed Gehrig's condition. Players and fans alike knew something was wrong. That much was evident as Gehrig awkwardly labored through the motions. It wasn't until the next day, while Gehrig's Yankee teammates returned to New York, that Gehrig boarded a train bound for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Gehrig didn't yet know what would come of the intense physical examination, of course, but his comments relayed in The Kansas City Star were ominous.
"I guess everybody wonders where I'm going," he said. "But I can't help believe there's something wrong with me. It's not conceivable that I could go to pieces so suddenly. I feel fine, feel strong and have the urge to play, but without warning this year I've apparently collapsed. "I'd like to play some more, and I want somebody to tell me what's wrong."
The game against the Yankees, whose lineup included Joe DiMaggio, drew a packed house of 23,864 fans -- then the largest crowd to attend an exhibition game in the history of the American Association. But people in Kansas City had been warned that Gehrig probably wouldn't play. He was still the team captain and still traveled with the team, but he hadn't played a game since the streak ended. Instead, Gehrig restricted himself to carrying the lineup card to the umpires before the game. He took the field against the Blues, most remember, for one simple reason.
"He actually didn't want to do that in Kansas City," said Tommy Henrich, then one of Gehrig's teammates. "But Gehrig, for the sake of those fans, went up to home plate. "He didn't look good. But he did swing and hit the ball. That's about all he could do." The fans thanked him mightily. Henrich, now 86 and living in Arizona, remembers that the fans "applauded like crazy." Hitchcock, 82 and living in Alabama, still remembers the "wild ovation." A story in The Kansas City Times noted that "the crowd roared to his name."
Even the players were a bit awestruck by Gehrig's presence. Phil Rizzuto, who went on to have a stellar career with the Yankees, played for the Blues in that game. "No one really realized that Gehrig was going to Mayo, how sick he was," Rizzuto said. "Growing up in New York, I had a few chances to see Lou Gehrig play at Yankee Stadium. He was a hero to all of us. "So you can imagine how thrilled I was to be standing next to him."
But the celebration didn't last long. The last ball Gehrig ever hit in a game scooted weakly toward second base and ended up in a Blues first baseman's glove. Just like that, it was over. Unceremoniously. Abruptly. And, most of all, unknowingly.
"Nobody knew," said Sid Bordman, a former Blues bat boy who was just 15 years old when he attended Gehrig's last game. "In those days, they didn't publicize guys being sick. "That the New York Yankees were there is what made it special."
Lou Gehrig took his position at first base and handled four put-outs without an error during that June afternoon game. What the box score hides is what Gehrig was going through. "Lou didn't mope around and think God had given him a bad break," Henrich said. "No, that wasn't in him. He accepted what had happened to him. "But boy, he had had it by then. He didn't have enough strength to swing the bat well. I think I thought, `That's the last time he's going up.' " That was in the third inning. Gehrig never took the field again.
The next day's coverage mentioned little about Gehrig's condition, though a line in The Kansas City Times did say that one Blues batter "pushed a hit past the slow-moving Gehrig." Many of the players, though, knew he was hurting. "He was so crippled he could hardly get to first base," Hitchcock said. "He didn't look healthy at all. "He had always been such a well-built, strong fella. But now he'd just lose his balance. Ground balls came at him, and he just wouldn't get it. He didn't have good control of his muscles. "Everybody knew something was wrong with him." What they didn't know, at least not then, was the extent.
What Gehrig was suffering from, a hardening of the spinal cord, caused his muscles to shrivel. And the disease racked him suddenly, robbing him of a stellar career in which he launched 29 home runs and drove in 114 runs in 1938. By the time spring training 1939 rolled around, the illness had already taken its toll. Johnny Sturm, who played first base for the Blues during Gehrig's last game, remembers talking to Gehrig before that 1939 season. "He was telling me that I'd be taking his place in a year or so," said Sturm, now 83 years old and living in the St. Louis area. "He didn't think he was going to last too long as a player. He kept getting worse. He wore himself thin.
"He just couldn't shake himself loose of it."
To reach Steve Rock, national baseball writer for The Star, send e-mail to srock@kcstar.com or call 816 234-4706
