I’ve always had a soft spot for Lou Gehrig. The first baseball book I read as a child was Paul Gallico’s Lou Gehrig: The Pride of the “Yankees”, which was first published in 1942. There have been plenty of books written about Gehrig since, topped by Ray Robinson’s Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time and Jonathan Eig’s Luckiest Man.
Even more books have been written about Babe Ruth, and more are planned this year, including a biography by Jane Leavy (The Big Fella) that will be released in October.
Ruth and Gehrig were the heart of the New York Yankees’ batting order in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Together, they played in four World Series, winning three of them. From 1925 to 1934, when they were full-time teammates, Ruth and Gehrig combined for 772 home runs and homered in the same game 72 times. Between them, they averaged 274 RBI each year.
Ruth was flamboyant and driven to excess in his off-the-field escapades, while Gehrig was quiet, workmanlike and did not seem to care that his teammate usually stole the limelight.
They were friends early in their relationship, but somehow that friendship soured into a stony silence. Some called it a feud, but it’s hard to use that term when one party — Gehrig — never said a word about it. Robinson called Gehrig “a private, armored man in a public environment.”
In his latest book, Tony Castro explores the love-hate relationship between the two sluggers. In Gehrig & the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud (Triumph Books; hardback; $25.95; 273 pages), Castro examines both players and their personalities, and the incidents that probably led to their estrangement. I say probably, because it has never been definitively established what the cause was. Gehrig and Ruth took those secrets to the grave, as did Gehrig’s wife, Eleanor. There are hints and possibilities that have been brought up before, and Castro visits each of them.
Castro recalls a conversation he had with Johnny Grant, a young radio newscaster who had sneaked onto the set of the movie Pride of the Yankees hoping to land a bit part in the film. Instead, he struck up a friendship with Ruth. Grant asserts that Ruth told him that he “let my friend down,” and when he asked the Bambino why, the former player finally said “Women. It’s always broads, keed.”
When Grant pressed for more details, Ruth waved him off. “I’ll tell you the full story another time. It’s too petty,” he said. “Friends shouldn’t part over broads, but they do, all the time.”
Even more books have been written about Babe Ruth, and more are planned this year, including a biography by Jane Leavy (The Big Fella) that will be released in October.
Ruth and Gehrig were the heart of the New York Yankees’ batting order in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Together, they played in four World Series, winning three of them. From 1925 to 1934, when they were full-time teammates, Ruth and Gehrig combined for 772 home runs and homered in the same game 72 times. Between them, they averaged 274 RBI each year.
Ruth was flamboyant and driven to excess in his off-the-field escapades, while Gehrig was quiet, workmanlike and did not seem to care that his teammate usually stole the limelight.
They were friends early in their relationship, but somehow that friendship soured into a stony silence. Some called it a feud, but it’s hard to use that term when one party — Gehrig — never said a word about it. Robinson called Gehrig “a private, armored man in a public environment.”
In his latest book, Tony Castro explores the love-hate relationship between the two sluggers. In Gehrig & the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud (Triumph Books; hardback; $25.95; 273 pages), Castro examines both players and their personalities, and the incidents that probably led to their estrangement. I say probably, because it has never been definitively established what the cause was. Gehrig and Ruth took those secrets to the grave, as did Gehrig’s wife, Eleanor. There are hints and possibilities that have been brought up before, and Castro visits each of them.
Castro recalls a conversation he had with Johnny Grant, a young radio newscaster who had sneaked onto the set of the movie Pride of the Yankees hoping to land a bit part in the film. Instead, he struck up a friendship with Ruth. Grant asserts that Ruth told him that he “let my friend down,” and when he asked the Bambino why, the former player finally said “Women. It’s always broads, keed.”
When Grant pressed for more details, Ruth waved him off. “I’ll tell you the full story another time. It’s too petty,” he said. “Friends shouldn’t part over broads, but they do, all the time.”
Eleanor Gehrig, left, and Claire Ruth in 1955.
Theories abound over why the two men grew distant with one another. One revisits the story that Gehrig’s mother, Christina, was appalled by the way Ruth’s younger daughter, Dorothy, was dressed when she and her stepsister visited the Gehrig household. Christina Gehrig, a highly opinionated and closed-minded woman who exercised control over her adoring son, lit into Claire Ruth, the Babe’s second wife and Dorothy’s stepmother. It “blindsided Claire and created a rift that no one saw coming,” Castro writes.
Ruth later confronted Gehrig in the Yankees locker room, and both men had to be separated. In Gehrig’s view, his mother was off-limits to criticism. Criticize Mom Gehrig, as she was affectionately known, and Lou would cut you off in a heartbeat. Even Babe Ruth, who loved Christina Gehrig's cooking and was a frequent visitor to the Gehrig household before tensions set in.
Castro said the relationship between Gehrig and his mother “bordered on the psychologically unhealthy,” and wondered if there had ever been a major sports figure “who has hung onto his mother’s apron strings” the way Gehrig had?
One could argue that tennis great Jimmy Connors was greatly influenced by his mother, but not to the extent of the Gehrig mother-son relationship. Connors was independent in ways Gehrig never approached.
The other rumor Castro explores — and it was more salacious than just an episode involving an overbearing parent — was the actual relationship Eleanor Gehrig may have had with Babe Ruth. During a barnstorming tour to Japan after the 1934 season, Eleanor Gehrig went missing for two hours. She was found with Claire and Babe Ruth in their stateroom, drinking and eating caviar. Castro quotes Leigh Montville’s marvelous biography of Ruth, The Big Bam, that intimated that “before she had known Gehrig, she had known the Babe,” and that Ruth “did not suffer many platonic relationships with women.”
Eleanor Gehrig always denied there had been a sexual relationship between her and Ruth. In her 1976 book My Luke and I, she described Ruth as “a pot-bellied, spindly legged, good-natured buffoon.”
Castro notes that Gehrig’s best friend on the Yankees, Bill Dickey, was reluctant to talk about any rifts, intimating that “it is just too unpleasant to think about even now.” Dickey conceded that something came between the two men, “but I don’t want to tell you about it.” Dickey took that information to the grave, too.
Ruth later confronted Gehrig in the Yankees locker room, and both men had to be separated. In Gehrig’s view, his mother was off-limits to criticism. Criticize Mom Gehrig, as she was affectionately known, and Lou would cut you off in a heartbeat. Even Babe Ruth, who loved Christina Gehrig's cooking and was a frequent visitor to the Gehrig household before tensions set in.
Castro said the relationship between Gehrig and his mother “bordered on the psychologically unhealthy,” and wondered if there had ever been a major sports figure “who has hung onto his mother’s apron strings” the way Gehrig had?
One could argue that tennis great Jimmy Connors was greatly influenced by his mother, but not to the extent of the Gehrig mother-son relationship. Connors was independent in ways Gehrig never approached.
The other rumor Castro explores — and it was more salacious than just an episode involving an overbearing parent — was the actual relationship Eleanor Gehrig may have had with Babe Ruth. During a barnstorming tour to Japan after the 1934 season, Eleanor Gehrig went missing for two hours. She was found with Claire and Babe Ruth in their stateroom, drinking and eating caviar. Castro quotes Leigh Montville’s marvelous biography of Ruth, The Big Bam, that intimated that “before she had known Gehrig, she had known the Babe,” and that Ruth “did not suffer many platonic relationships with women.”
Eleanor Gehrig always denied there had been a sexual relationship between her and Ruth. In her 1976 book My Luke and I, she described Ruth as “a pot-bellied, spindly legged, good-natured buffoon.”
Castro notes that Gehrig’s best friend on the Yankees, Bill Dickey, was reluctant to talk about any rifts, intimating that “it is just too unpleasant to think about even now.” Dickey conceded that something came between the two men, “but I don’t want to tell you about it.” Dickey took that information to the grave, too.
Eleanor Gehrig, center, plays nice with her in-laws, Christina and Heinrich Gehrig.
Castro, who has previously written two books about Yankees players — Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son, in 2008; and DiMag and Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers, in 2016 — utilizes an extensive bibliography for his narrative on Gehrig and Ruth. That includes two books about Gehrig from 1941, works by Claire Ruth, Dorothy Ruth Pirone, Eleanor Gehrig, Gallico, Robinson, Eig, Montville, Robert Creamer and Harvey Frommer. He references both of his books and even lists Leavy’s 2018 biography as a source.
He lists Grant as one of the “godfathers” for this book, and adds the other godfather was writing colleague Dave Thomas, who pointed out that the feud between Los Angeles Lakers stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant was “the modern-day Ruth and Gehrig.” It’s an astute observation.
Two facts that Castro revealed were fascinating to me. One was that Juanita Jennings, who had some dalliances with Ruth, claimed to be the mother of Dorothy Ruth. It had been assumed that Dorothy had been adopted from an orphanage by Babe and Helen Ruth, and some news stories after Helen’s death in 1929 mentioned it. The International News Service reported on Jan. 16, 1929, that “Neither Ruth nor the family of his wife have any legal claim to Dorothy as the Ruths took her from a Brooklyn, N.Y., Catholic orphanage on a ‘continued custody’ basis.” The Associated Press reported two days earlier that Ruth and his wife announced in September 1922 that a daughter had been born but “they had decided not to announce it earlier.” No mention of adoption in the AP version.
Jennings, Castro wrote, did not admit to being Dorothy Ruth’s birth mother until shortly before her death in 1980. So, it’s another mystery taken to the grave by those who knew the answers.
He lists Grant as one of the “godfathers” for this book, and adds the other godfather was writing colleague Dave Thomas, who pointed out that the feud between Los Angeles Lakers stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant was “the modern-day Ruth and Gehrig.” It’s an astute observation.
Two facts that Castro revealed were fascinating to me. One was that Juanita Jennings, who had some dalliances with Ruth, claimed to be the mother of Dorothy Ruth. It had been assumed that Dorothy had been adopted from an orphanage by Babe and Helen Ruth, and some news stories after Helen’s death in 1929 mentioned it. The International News Service reported on Jan. 16, 1929, that “Neither Ruth nor the family of his wife have any legal claim to Dorothy as the Ruths took her from a Brooklyn, N.Y., Catholic orphanage on a ‘continued custody’ basis.” The Associated Press reported two days earlier that Ruth and his wife announced in September 1922 that a daughter had been born but “they had decided not to announce it earlier.” No mention of adoption in the AP version.
Jennings, Castro wrote, did not admit to being Dorothy Ruth’s birth mother until shortly before her death in 1980. So, it’s another mystery taken to the grave by those who knew the answers.
The other fact I had not seen before was what Ruth said to Gehrig when he embraced the Iron Horse after his “Luckiest Man” speech on July 4, 1939, which caused Lou to smile. Castro reports that Ruth hugged Gehrig and said “C’mon, kid … C’mon, kid, buck up now. We’re all with you.” That embrace graces the cover of Gehrig & the Babe and has been a staple of all books about Gehrig.
Rud Rennie, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, phrased it differently, quoting Ruth telling Gehrig to try out the fishing rod he'd been given and catch all the fish in the sea.
I agree with Castro's version, which came from a report out of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle after Gehrig's speech.
The friction between the two men, Castro quotes University of Hawaii English professor Frank Ardolino, developed from their different personalities, public personas and the influence of other people on their relationship. “Given all of these factors, their feud seems inevitable and regrettable,” Ardolino concludes in a paper he wrote for the Society for American Baseball Research.
Castro explores all those attributes and combines it into a neat package. While some questions may forever be unanswered in the Gehrig-Ruth friendship and feud, Castro’s book provides some excellent context.
Rud Rennie, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, phrased it differently, quoting Ruth telling Gehrig to try out the fishing rod he'd been given and catch all the fish in the sea.
I agree with Castro's version, which came from a report out of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle after Gehrig's speech.
The friction between the two men, Castro quotes University of Hawaii English professor Frank Ardolino, developed from their different personalities, public personas and the influence of other people on their relationship. “Given all of these factors, their feud seems inevitable and regrettable,” Ardolino concludes in a paper he wrote for the Society for American Baseball Research.
Castro explores all those attributes and combines it into a neat package. While some questions may forever be unanswered in the Gehrig-Ruth friendship and feud, Castro’s book provides some excellent context.
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