New York Yankees Quiz: [Trying to have something for each
fan level.] 1) Who was the last A.L. MVP? 2) Who was the first
Yankee to win the Cy Young award? [Hint: The first one was
handed out in 1956.] 3) How many of the 14 players that have
had their uniform retired can you name? 4) Who is the single
season leader in RBI? 5) Who am I? I hit 30 HR three times in
the 1940s and my initials are C.K. 6) Who was the last A.L. HR
champ? 7) Name the top five in games played as a Yank. 8)
Who is the only Yankee to throw 2 no-hitters? 9) Who am I? I
led the Yanks in batting, HR, and RBI in 1965. Answers below.
Lou Gehrig
On June 19, 1903, Lou Gehrig was born in Yorkville, on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The son of German immigrants,
he was the only one of four children to survive to adulthood.
Gehrig attended Columbia University where, after a problem
with his eligibility due to a summer league snafu, he was signed
to play with the New York Yankees by scout Paul Krichell in
1923.
Lou came up to the Yankees at the end of both 1923 and 24,
where he went 17 for 38, combined, a .447 average, after which
he made the club coming out of spring training in ’25.
On May 31, 1925, Gehrig pinch-hit for Pee Wee Wanninger.
The next day, first baseman Wally Pipp took off with a headache
and Gehrig’s consecutive game streak, one that was to extend a
staggering 2,130 games, was under way. In that first full season,
though, few could figure on the production that was to follow, as
Gehrig was pinch-hit for himself 3 times in June. Nonetheless,
the Yankees would finish the season 69-85 and manager Miller
Huggins wanted to see what this now 22-year-old could do.
Gehrig responded with a solid 20 home runs and 68 RBI to go
along with a .295 average. The following season, Gehrig hit .313
with 112 RBI as the Yankees made it to the Series, only to lose
to St. Louis in seven.
Then in 1927, Lou Gehrig really busted through. Teaming with
Babe Ruth, the two were the most prolific duo in baseball
history. That season they combined for 107 homers (Ruth had
his 60) and 339 RBI, with Gehrig driving in 175 while batting
.373.
[In ’61, Maris and Mantle may have combined for 115 home
runs, but they ‘only’ drove in 270.]
Lou Gehrig would go on to have 13, 100-RBI seasons, still tied
with Jimmie Foxx and Ruth for most in the game in this regard,
while wracking up 1,995 for his career, good for #3 all time.
[And think about the fact he was often hitting after Ruth and,
later, Joe DiMaggio had cleared the bases in front of him.]
Gehrig also has the #3 slugging percentage, is #8 in runs scored,
and finished with a .340 batting average. Then you have:
–He is the only Yank to hit 4 home runs in a single game, and
was robbed of a 5th that day by Al Simmons, incidentally.
–Hit .361 in 7 World Series, with 10 HR and 35 RBI in 34
games.
–Still the major league leader in career grand slams with 23.
–Stole home 15 times.
–Won a Triple Crown in 1934, 49-165, .363.
Of course, Lou Gehrig is also known for the tragic circumstances
behind his early death on June 2, 1941, at age 38.
In 1937, Gehrig, now 34, had hit .351 with 200 hits, 37 HR and
159 RBI.
Then in ’38, he suddenly slumped, at least for him, to 29 HR and
114 RBI with a .295 average. Something seemed to be very
wrong. Doctors diagnosed a gall bladder problem, but they put
him on a diet that only made him weaker. The following spring,
Gehrig’s Yankee teammates noticed that the man long since
known as “The Iron Horse” was a mere shell of his former self.
At times he had trouble moving, and he appeared to step
gingerly. As the 1939 season opened, Gehrig had only 4 hits in
his first 28 at bats.
In his last game, Gehrig had trouble getting to first base on a
routine ball hit back to the pitcher. When his teammates
congratulated him for completing the play, Gehrig knew they did
so out of compassion. He also recognized he had come to the
end of the road and took himself out of the game.
The next day, team captain Lou Gehrig took the lineup to home
plate as he always did, only for the first time since 1925 his own
name wasn’t on the card. Babe Dahlgren was replacing him at
first. The game announcer came on and said, “Ladies and
gentlemen, Lou Gehrig’s consecutive streak of 2,130 games
played has ended.”
Gehrig retired May 2, and on June 21 the Mayo Clinic diagnosed
him as suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, what would
forever be known afterwards as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
On July 4, 1939, Gehrig gave his farewell speech at a packed
Yankee Stadium.
“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the
bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on
the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen
years, and have never received anything but kindness and
encouragement from you fans.
“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it
the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even
one day? Sure I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to
have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s
greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that
wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the
next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of
psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy?
“Sure I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would
give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift –
that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers
and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies –
that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law
who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter –
that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who
work all their lives so you can have an education and build your
body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a
tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed
existed – that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may
have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
There are some who all these years later say Gehrig’s words are
on the same level as the Gettysburg Address. Writer Ray
Robinson once noted, “The event itself must be accorded sport’s
most agonizing spectacle.”
[The 1942 film “Pride of the Yankees” took more than a few
liberties, moving the second line of the speech to the end for
dramatic effect.]
In looking at Gehrig’s life and career, the casual fan has an
image of this humble sort, but he was a far more complex person.
Following are a few interpretations.
Pitcher Sam Jones, who played for the Yankees from 1922-26.
“One of the nicest fellows ever lived, Lou was. He never really
got the publicity he deserved. A very serious-minded fellow,
very modest and easy to get along with, always every inch a
gentleman. Lou was the kind of boy if you had a son he’s the
kind of person you’d like your son to be.” [“The Glory of Their
Times.”]
From Hank Greenberg.
“He wasn’t very friendly….I was in the league a year and a half
before he said a word to me. I remember the first time he spoke
to me, it was in the middle of the 1934 season just after we
passed the Yankees and went into first place. I got a single and
was standing on first base. He turned to me and said, sort of
gruffly, ‘Aren’t you even gonna say hello?’
“ ‘Hello, Lou,’ I said. That’s all. I couldn’t think of anything
else to say. I think I was scared of him. From then on it was just
‘hello’ and that was it. We never chatted.” [“The Glory of Their
Times.”]
There is also a different kind of story surrounding Greenberg and
Gehrig. The very scout who signed Gehrig, Paul Krichell,
invited Greenberg, then a New York City schoolboy legend, to
Yankee Stadium. When Gehrig appeared on the field, Krichell
told Greenberg, “He’s all washed up. In a few years you’ll be
the Yankees’ first baseman.”
Greenberg knew otherwise and took less money than offered by
the Yankees to sign with the Detroit Tigers.
But perhaps the least understood aspect of Gehrig’s years as a
Yankee, at least among today’s younger baseball fans, is the fact
Gehrig and Babe Ruth had a major falling out and went some six
years at the end of Gehrig’s career without speaking to each
other. It was at Gehrig’s farewell address that Ruth broke the ice
and whispered something in his ear.
Gehrig was once asked what it was like to play in Ruth’s shadow
in those early years. “It’s a pretty big shadow,” he responded.
“It gives me lots of room to spread myself.”
Part of the problem was that Ruth was a man about town with
gargantuan tastes, while the Iron Horse led a far more modest
life. Eleanor Gehrig described her husband as a square, honest
guy. Legendary sportswriter Jim Murray called him “Gibraltar
in cleats.”
But it was during an off-season barnstorming tour of Japan in
1933 that the Ruth-Gehrig relationship boiled over. Eleanor
made a comment about the way Ruth’s daughter dressed, Ruth
found out about it, and the two didn’t talk again until Gehrig’s
farewell.
Today, it’s more than a bit ironic that another sufferer of ALS
has been in the news the past week, that being Tom Watson’s
caddy, Bruce Edwards. As you all know, ALS has no known
cure and in this country some 5,000 die from it each year. As a
baseball fan, I just wish I had been given memories of an elderly
Gehrig, showing up at Yankee Stadium for an old timers’ game
in my own youth.
[Sources: “Baseball’s Greatest Quotations,” Paul Dickson;
“Baseball Anecdotes,” Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf; “Red
Smith on Baseball,” Red Smith; “Baseball: The Biographical
Encyclopedia,” from the editors of “Total Baseball”; “The Glory
of Their Times,” Lawrence S. Ritter.]
Stuff
–Jason Kidd: Those of us in New Jersey are more than a bit
frustrated by the possibility that Kidd will be leaving the Nets.
Though no one denies him his right to test the free agent market,
for once I’d like to see a pro athlete stick around to try and win a
championship with his existing team, instead of just seeking the
one where he has the most obvious chance of picking up a ring.
And we’re not talking Ernie Banks here, Banks having played 19
years for the incredibly mediocre Chicago Cubs without ever
getting into a single World Series. If the Nets pick up just one
shooter, the way Jefferson, Martin and even Collins are
progressing, and with Kidd returning, the team is right there
again come next June.
But the New York Post’s Peter Vecsey says Kidd is going to San
Antonio, with the possibility of Speedy Claxton moving to New
Jersey, while others say that Kidd will stay, not just because wife
Joumana wants to continue building her media career in New
York, but also because San Antonio needs a big man to replace
David Robinson more than they need a new point guard,
assuming that Tony Parker continues to improve.
–But speaking of San Antonio, as the championship series was
progressing, Johnny Mac commented that of the team’s top 8
players, 6 were basically nobodies. Parker was a late first-
rounder, Bowen was a cheapie free agent, nobody wanted Rose
out of college because he was too short, Claxton was damaged
goods with his knee operation, Ginobili was just another
foreigner with a jump shot, and Stephen Jackson was a Nets
reject, for crying out loud. Just goes to show you the value of
Duncan and Robinson, that’s for sure, along with a helluva
coach.
As for Robinson, the Star-Ledger’s Jerry Izenberg had a few
notes on his community work, which we are all familiar with by
now. Here’s a classic example, however, that those of us not
living in the San Antonio area may not have heard before.
“David Robinson visits Gates Elementary school in 1991 and
promises each kid who graduates from high school $2,500.
When the time comes, Robinson is there for them. The only
thing different is that instead of $2,500, he gives each of them
$8,000.”
As for Tim Duncan, Robinson said this of him.
“If you’re looking for a guy to do those crazy dunks and do a lot
of posturing and fancy things that people like so much today,
Tim isn’t your man. But if you want a guy who does everything
right – plays the right way, wins the right way, treats his
teammates the right way and represents his franchise and himself
the right way – then he is definitely your man.” [Source: David
DuPree / USA Today]
–Lastly, on the topic of the NBA Finals, like the rest of you
Peter Vecsey couldn’t believe ABC’s halftime show in Game 6,
which featured Joel Siegel doing film reviews.
“It’s come to this: The deciding game of an NBA championship
is reduced to a movie trailer. What’s the matter, the league
couldn’t book Alvin and the Chipmunks?
“I give it two middle fingers up.”
–With the recent combined no-hitter against the Yankees by the
six Astros pitchers, there was a blurb in the Star-Ledger
concerning some of the more unusual no-nos in baseball history.
There was Bobo Hollman, who in 1953 made his 1st major
league start for the St. Louis Browns as a 29-year-old rookie and
tossed a no-hitter. Holloman went just 3-7 that season, his only
one in the big leagues. And then you had Rick Wise, who in
1971 threw a no-hitter for the Phillies, while also hitting two
home runs in the same game. Wise hit a total of six that season
and finished up 188-181 in his long career.
–The New York Yankees are paying Gene Michael $4 million
over the next six years to be a freakin’ scout!
–Johnny Mac was comparing PGA Tour prize money these days
to, for instance, 1980. That year, Jack Nicklaus won the U.S.
Open and pocketed $55,000. This year Jim Furyk took home
$1.08 million. If you assume about a 3% inflation rate since ’80
(close enough to the truth) and you use your “rule of 72,” the top
prize would be about $110,000. Oh, to be a Top 100 golfer on
tour these days. It’s a great life, if you can just string a few solid
years together.
–The Glasgow Zoo is closing, meaning new homes are going to
have to be found for two African lions and three Bengal tigers.
But since the staff is also being laid off, I expect the parties to
form a guerrilla movement in the Scottish highlands, possibly led
by Sean Connery.
–Mariah Carey has announced she is looking for a boyfriend.
Huh.
–And then there is Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey.
The NCAA has just penalized the school, removing 20
scholarships in 10 sports due to Rutgers’ messing with the rules
regarding eligibility and certification from 1997-2001. In one
case, 12 athletes declared “pre-business” as their major….when
there is no pre-business major.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/20/70: #1 “The Long And
Winding Road” (The Beatles) #2 “The Love You Save” (The
Jackson 5) #3 “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” (The Poppy
Family)
New York Yankees Quiz Answers: 1) Don Mattingly is the last
Yankee to win the MVP, 1985. 2) Bob Turley was the first Cy
Young winner, 1958. 3) Retired uniform #’s, players. #1 Billy
Martin (yes, he did earn this for his managing more than his
playing), #3 Babe Ruth, #4 Lou Gehrig, #5 Joe DiMaggio, #7
Mickey Mantle, #8 Bill Dickey / Yogi Berra, #9 Roger Maris,
#10 Phil Rizzuto, #15 Thurman Munson, #16 Whitey Ford, #23
Don Mattingly, #32 Elston Howard, #44 Reggie Jackson. 4) Lou
Gehrig is the single season RBI leader with 184, 1931. 5)
Charlie “King Kong” Keller smacked 30 or more homers in ’41,
’43, ’46. Actually, he was only 5’10”, 185. 6) Reggie Jackson is
the last HR champ, 41 in ’80. 7) Games played: Mickey Mantle
– 2,401; Lou Gehrig – 2,164; Yogi Berra – 2,116; Babe Ruth –
2,084; Roy White, 1,881. [If you got this last one, you know
your Yankees.] 8) Allie Reynolds, “Superchief,” threw two no-
hitters in 1951 at age 36. He was 182-107 in his career, pitching
for both Cleveland and the Yanks. 9) Tom Tresh led the Yanks
in batting (.279), HR (26) and RBI (74) in 1965.
–Leighton Rees, the first professional to win the world dart-
throwing championship, died the other day in Pontypridd, South
Wales. Rees warmed up by downing two pints of lager and a
brandy.
–“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk in order to
spend time with his friends.”
–Ernest Hemingway……………via Mike H.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday, from somewhere in Missouri. Also, it
may not be posted early like I’ve been doing recently.
