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Lou Gehrig

by Jacob from Wheeling

Lou Gehrig (http://www.nndb.com/people/467/000023398/)
Lou Gehrig (http://www.nndb.com/people/467/000023398/)

Lou Gehrig was born June 19, 1903. He lived in Manhattan until he was 20 years old. He started playing baseball at the high school level. His parents were Heinrich and Christina Gehrig.

Lou found he had ability to be a baseball player when he played a game at Cubs Park, now called Wrigley Field. That was when he was in high school at a young age. Baseball was one of the things he enjoyed as a kid, and another was helping his mom with chores. He was better at baseball, though.

Gehrig joined the Yankees in the middle of the 1923 season and made his major league debut on June 15, 1923, but he was just a pinch-hitter. He stayed as a pinch-hitter for two years. He only played 23 games in 1923. In 1925 the Yankees started playing Gehrig as a starter. He hit 20 home runs that year, but he never really broke out until the 1926 season when he led the league in triples. 20 home runs is still good, though.

The reason he's so important to me is because I love baseball and he was great on and off the field. One day he visited an ill boy in a hospital. He promised him a homerun. Gehrig didn't hit one homerun that day. He hit two. That story has influenced me to practice more and has made me better OFF the field too.

A few years later, Lou stopped hitting well. Nobody knew why for a while. Lou died of a serious disease, now called Lou Gehrig's Disease, in 1935. It was a tragic death for the Yankees and all of America. The one it was most tragic for though, was the little boy that Lou met, one day in the hospital.

Page created on 5/13/2011 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 5/13/2011 12:00:00 AM

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