Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
After the Called Shot
If a single episode encapsulated the essence of Lou Gehrig's achievements, while underlining his perennial supporting role to Babe Ruth, it was that moment in the 1932 World Series when the Babe's "called-shot" home run was infused into baseball mythology.
Stepping to the plate after the Babe's grand, risky gesture had brought the house down, Gehrig hit his own follow-up home run, an enormous fly, sailing along on the wings of the breeze off Lake Michigan, clearing the high flagpole and landing in the temporary right-field stand.
But no artist has ever been inspired to paint an oil impression of Lou's home run, while several have depicted on canvas Ruth's blast.
Ironically, Gehrig is now best remembered not for the committed way he played the game, but for the way he departed it on that lugubrious summer day in 1939 when he waved farewell to the fans at Yankee Stadium because he was stricken in the prime of life with an incurable disease.
But to understand the nobility of that moment, which has inspired so many people ever since while nudging Gehrig toward sainthood and ensconcing him in American folklore, we must recover Gehrig the player and Gehrig the man.
When the Babe and Lou played in their fourth and final World Series together in 1932, Ruth, at thirty-seven, had just enjoyed his last forty-home-run season (with forty-one).
Iron Horse. Copyright © by Ray Robinson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
