The Ol' Ballfield

Book Review:
Luckiest Man:
The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
by Jonathan Eig

As the author quotes, the phrase "never get to know your heroes" does not apply to Lou Gehrig. A biography can often become suspected of revisionist history when painting its subject to be an irrepressible, hard-working, all-around swell guy, but Jonathan Eig's 2005 account of Gehrig's life (cover: $26.00; list: $15.00; amazon.com: $9.09) is more than thorough enough as to the source of its material that one knows this not to be the case.

To get the crticisms over with first: when I began the book I feared the overly clunky writing would be really annoying throughout. This paragraph describing Gehrig's father's background illustrates what I mean:

Heinrich left Germany at the age of twenty. He may have emigrated illegally, since there appear to be no records of his journey in either Germany or the United States. He settled first in Chicago, didn't like his prospects there, and soon tried New York. Long after most men his age had married, Heinrich remained single. No doubt his pokey work habits made him something short of a princely catch. He had no known family in the United States and probably lived alone, renting a bed or sofa from a family that needed whatever pittance he could afford to pay. In 1901, at the age of thirty-four, he finaly met the woman he would marry.

It has a real "Sentence. Sentence. Clause, clause. Sentence." feel to it. It would prove, however, to merely be reflective of the utilitarian nature of the passage. The rest of the book was a nicer read, with a few exceptions.

Those exceptions lie in one major facet and one minor facet. The major facet is Eig's tendency to fall into the romantic, as biographers are wont to do. Eig doesn't get as drippy as many (such as the to-be-discussed Mitch Albom), but it's there. The worst offense is documented below:

Traveling with the Yankees in 1932 was like traveling in a time machine with the dial stuck on "Good Old Days."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The minor facet has to do with Eig's other tendency to, um, describe Gehrig's body in a detailed manner. Observe:

His torso formed a perfect V. His shoulders and forearms were as taut as a rope. His chest looked like a hunk of marble. His stomach revealed not an ounce of fat. Yet while his upper body looked like something out of an anatomy textbook, his lower body appeared to belong to another species, neither man nor ape. Each thigh was bigger than many a man's waist, each calf the size of a Christmas ham. Here was the hidden source of his tremendous power and durability.

It's as if Eric Byrnes was temporarily inhabiting the author.

But it's time to return to a more serious tone. The above is unfair. Eig has provided a delicate, sincere, and informative account of Gehrig's life and death. Throughout the first half of the book, Gehrig's modesty, naïvete, work ethic and desire to please all those that counted on him are described and reiterated just the right amount. His unwavering drive to not let the success that surrounded him engulf his easy-going personality is a foreground theme in the book, to the point that Eig depicts many cases in which Gehrig's shyness cost him opportunities and prevented him from warming to many of his colleagues. This effort finds its huge payoff during the second half, when Gehrig's slow but inevitable disintegration pushes itself painfully into the limelight. Every stumble is painful to read about, and equally tough is each account of Gehrig's steadfast resolve throughout the ordeal. This paragraph itself seems to have devolved into rambling lip-service, but, as this book as confirmed for me, if any man deserves it, it's Gehrig.

The research within helps clear up a lot of details; for instance, Gehrig's Wikipedia article maintains that his wife, Eleanor kept the sordid details of his disease from him until the end. Luckiest Man debunks at least the dogmatic part of this theory:

By now, [Gehrig and his doctor Paul O'Leary] had probably discussed the details and dynamics of ALS. Gehrig had probably begun reading literature on the disease. He was beginning to get a sense of what would happen to him.

It may be true that Eleanor never told Gehrig that ALS was fatal.

The book of course comes to a head on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day (pictured above). I'm just going to reproduce the speech here, in full. It is one of the most meaningful speeches I have ever heard, read, or heard about, especially when considering how much effort it took him to give it.

"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 this 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."

A perfect, perfect farewell.

My final praise for the book comes at this chronological point as well. For most baseball fans, and indeed most Americans, the legend of Gehrig stops there. But the biography, and Lou's life did not. You read about opening his car door and just crumbling out of it. You read about asking photographers to prop pencils in his fingers so it looked like he could use one. You read about him losing the power to speak, and ultimately the (for me) quintessential haunting image of the brash, unflappable Babe Ruth pushing to the front of the line at Gehrig's wake and weeping at his casket.

For fans of Yankee history and of the Iron Horse himself, this book is a must-read. For baseball fans, it's a must get-around-to. For regular Americans looking at a profile in courage, it's top notch. I wrote a couple months ago about how Steve Yzerman was my hero. This book left me wishing I had grown up seventy years earlier so that I could idolize this man. ALS has claimed thousands, but no accounts are more courageous than this. Other prominent cases are the famous Dr. Stephen Hawking, who has lived incredibly long with the disease, and Morrie Schwartz was the featured afflicted individual in Albom's best-selling book, Tuesday's With Morrie, in which another incredibly courageous and touching individual is portrayed.

I'll close here with streak-breaker Cal Ripken, Jr.'s words on the night he broke the Iron Horse's consecutive games record.

Tonight, I stand here, overwhelmed, as my name is linked with the great and courageous Lou Gehrig.

Good book.

posted by Carnival @ 2/13/2007