DETROIT - The whispers started in spring training. Was this the end of Lou Gehrig's career? Instead of looking graceful in the field, he looked clunky and awkward. Instead of running, he shuffled. When he'd make solid contact with the ball, it would fall harmlessly in the outfield. In short, he looked done.
There were some signs the year before - he had struggled in the second half of the year, sending his batting average to its lowest number since his rookie year, and he didn't get an extra-base hit in the World Series. But what was happening now caught everybody by surprise. His uniform suddenly looked baggy on his once-powerful frame. He was 35 but looked a decade older. He even collapsed during one spring training game. It was obvious that his streak of 2,122 straight games played was in serious jeopardy.
As the team broke camp, Gehrig tried to tough it out, playing in his team's first eight games, but he soon saw the writing on the wall. His speed and strength were completely gone. On May 2, 1939, before a game against the Tigers, Gehrig went to manager Joe McCarthy and asked to be removed from the lineup.
Gehrig himself took the lineup card out to the umpires at the start of the game that day. It was the first Yankees lineup card since 1925 that didn't have his name on it. When the public address announcer informed the crowd at Tiger Stadium that Gehrig wasn't in the lineup, the crowd stood and applauded. During the game, photographers took several pictures of him showing him, unusually, on the bench. In one, tears could be seen forming in his eyes. McCarthy had told Gehrig could return to the lineup whenever he felt able, but though Gehrig stayed with the team for a few more weeks, he never played again.
The Yankees didn't miss Gehrig on the field that year, winning their first game without him 22-2 and cruising to the American League and World Series champions with a team often considered among the best of all time. But they never forgot their captain, honoring him with a dedication day on July 4 and making him the first player in American professional sports to have his number retired.
Over the next month, Gehrig's condition worsened to the point where he visited the Mayo Clinic. On June 13 of that year, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a disease that slowly eats away at the central nervous system. Though he returned several times to the Mayo Clinic, there was little the doctors could do. Within two years, Gehrig was dead, the most famous victim of the disease that now bears his name.
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