Minor leagues Gehrig signed a contract with the Yankees on April 30. Gehrig returned to the minor league
Hartford Senators to play parts of two seasons, 1923 and 1924, batting .344 and hitting 61 home runs in 193 games. Except for his games at Hartford, a two-hour car ride away, Gehrig played his entire baseball life—sandlot, high school, college, and professional—with teams based in New York City.
New York Yankees (1923–1939) 1923–1932 Gehrig joined the New York Yankees midway through the 1923 season and made his major-league debut as a
pinch hitter at age 19 on June 15, 1923. In his first two seasons, Gehrig was mired behind Yankee stalwart
Wally Pipp at first base, a two-time
American League (AL) home run champion and one of the premier power hitters in
Major League Baseball's (MLB) "
dead-ball era." Gehrig saw limited playing time, mostly as a
pinch hitter, playing in only 23 games and being left off the Yankees'
1923 World Series roster in spite of producing both years (with lofty
batting averages of .423 in 1923 and .500 in 1924). On June 1, 1925, the slumping Pipp took himself out of the day's lineup with complaints of a headache and was replaced by Gehrig. Pipp would never get his job with the team back, while Gehrig went on to appear in every game the Yankees played until April 30, 1939. In 1925, Gehrig batted .295, with 20 home runs and 68
runs batted in (RBIs) over 126 games. ,
Ty Cobb, and
Babe Ruth in 1928 In
1927, Gehrig put together one of the greatest seasons by any batter in history, hitting .373, with 218 hits: 101
singles, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, a then-record 175 RBIs (surpassing Ruth's 168 six years earlier), a .474
on-base percentage and a .765
slugging percentage. In
1929, the Yankees debuted wearing numbers on their uniforms. Gehrig wore number 4 because he hit behind Ruth, who batted third in the lineup. In
1932, Gehrig became the first player in the 20th century to
hit four home runs in a game, accomplishing the feat on June 3 against the
Philadelphia Athletics at
Shibe Park. He narrowly missed hitting a fifth home run when Athletics
center fielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of another fly ball at the center-field fence. Following the game, Yankees manager
Joe McCarthy told him, "Well, Lou, nobody can take today away from you." On the same day, however,
John McGraw announced his retirement after 30 years of managing the
New York Giants, so McGraw, not Gehrig, got the main headlines in the city's sports sections the next day. Gehrig's four home run game was only the third in MLB history to that point, the first since
Ed Delahanty in 1896.
1933–1939 in 1935 On August 17, 1933, Gehrig played in his 1,308th consecutive game against the
St. Louis Browns at
Sportsman's Park, which surpassed the longest consecutive games played streak held by
Everett Scott. Scott attended as a guest of the Browns. On April 30, 1934, Gehrig hit his 300th home run against the
Washington Senators, becoming the second player to reach the milestone after Ruth. Gehrig won the AL
Triple Crown in 1934, leading the league with 49 home runs, 166 RBIs and a .363 batting average.
2,130 consecutive games On June 1, 1925, Gehrig entered the game as a pinch hitter, substituting for
shortstop Paul "Pee-Wee" Wanninger. The next day, June 2, Yankee manager
Miller Huggins started Gehrig in place of regular first baseman
Wally Pipp, who had a headache. Pipp was in a slump, as was the team, so Huggins made several lineup changes in an attempt to boost their performance, replacing Pipp,
Aaron Ward and
Wally Schang. Fourteen years later, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games, shattering the previous record of 1,307 along the way. , from left to right: Gehrig,
Joe Cronin,
Bill Dickey,
Joe DiMaggio,
Charlie Gehringer,
Jimmie Foxx, and
Hank Greenberg. All seven would be elected to the
Hall of Fame. During the streak, sportswriters in 1931 nicknamed Gehrig "the Iron Horse". In a few instances, Gehrig managed to keep the streak intact through pinch-hitting appearances and fortuitous timing; in others, the streak continued despite injuries. For example: • On April 23, 1933, a pitch by
Earl Whitehill of the Washington Senators struck Gehrig in the head. Although almost knocked unconscious, Gehrig remained in the game. • On June 14, 1933, Gehrig was
ejected from a game, along with manager
Joe McCarthy, but he had already been at bat. • In a June 1934 exhibition game, Gehrig was hit by a pitch just above the right eye and was knocked unconscious. According to news reports, he was out for five minutes.
Batting helmets were not commonly used until the 1940s. He left the game but was in the lineup the next day. • On July 13, 1934, Gehrig suffered a "
lumbago attack" and had to be assisted off the field. In the next day's away game, he was listed in the lineup as "shortstop", batting lead-off. In his first and only plate appearance, he singled and was promptly replaced by a pinch runner to rest his throbbing back, never taking the field.
A&E's
Biography speculated that this illness, which he also described as "a cold in his back," might have been the first symptom of the disease which ultimately led to his retirement. In addition,
x-rays taken late in his life disclosed that Gehrig had sustained several fractures during his playing career, although he remained in the lineup despite those previously undisclosed injuries. However, the streak was helped when Yankees general manager
Ed Barrow postponed a game as a rainout on a day when Gehrig was sick with the flu, though it was not raining. He continued the streak despite his wife attempting to persuade him to end it at 1,999 games by acting sick. He then had beaten the previous record by nearly 700 games. Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games endured for fifty-six years until
Baltimore Orioles shortstop
Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it on September 6, 1995; Ripken finished with 2,632 consecutive games. ==Personal life==