To fully appreciate the legacy that Henry Louis Gehrig left behind, one truly has to look at the beginning, the middle and the end.
The beginning was 100 years ago, on June 19, 1903, in New York, where a baseball team now known as the Yankees was playing its inaugural season. A 14-pound boy, a Big Apple indeed, was born in Manhattan's Yorkville district to German immigrants Heinrich and Christina Gehrig. "Little" Lou would be the only one of their four children to survive past infancy; one died before him and two after him.
The middle was a majestic baseball career with those Yankees that yielded 493 home runs, 13 consecutive 100-RBI seasons, a .340 career average, six World Series championships and an unthinkable streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. The Babe got the headlines; the Iron Horse just got it done.
Read Full Article »