Ruth and Gehrig at Odds

     Many fans of historical Yankee baseball are under the impression that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were close friends. They weren’t. Especially after the 1932 campaign. Ruth’s public image as a mentor to Gehrig was manufactured to a great extent by the Babe’s personal agent, Christy Walsh. If Walsh hadn’t brought them together, it’s doubtful the two would have forged a bond beyond the confines of the ballfield. They were polar opposites. Gehrig was humble, reserved, and respectful of authority figures. Ruth was none of those things.

            The disparity between the two men was readily apparent whenever they got together for a round of bridge. Ruth always drank during the games while Gehrig—an extremely cautious player—preferred to remain sober. The Babe invariably made outrageous bids, knowing that it drove Gehrig crazy. Many of the sessions ended with Gehrig abruptly throwing his cards on the table in frustration and asking Ruth to tally up the final score. Yet, in spite of their differences, Ruth and Gehrig maintained a friendly relationship (for awhile anyway), fishing together during the offseason and interacting regularly with one another’s families.

            At some point during the 1932 season, a major disagreement occurred. Ruth had always liked Gehrig’s mother, Christina, and the meals she prepared. He sometimes brought his daughter, Dorothy, along with him when he visited her home. But after the death of his first wife, Helen, the Babe was not as warmly received. When Dorothy showed up at the Gehrig home one day looking somewhat disheveled, Christina commented that Ruth’s stepdaughter, Julia, often appeared in public wearing fancy clothing while Dorothy was forced to wear hand-me-downs.  When the slugger’s second wife, Claire, heard about the remark, she issued a direct order to the Babe: “Tell Lou to muzzle his mother.” Ruth was none too happy himself and, during a clubhouse confrontation, he bluntly told Gehrig that his mother “should mind her own goddamn business.” Gehrig—a Mama’s boy since early childhood—was highly offended by the remark. The two men argued bitterly and had to be separated by teammates. It was the end of their friendship. Though they posed for group photos and traveled together with the team, they stopped speaking. Gehrig even refused to shake Ruth’s hand after his home runs.

            Hostility between the two men was rekindled in 1937, when Ruth made some disparaging remarks to reporters. By then, the Babe had retired as a player while Gehrig was padding his “Iron Man” record. Gehrig’s streak of consecutive games stood at 1,808 at the end of the ’36 campaign. Offering his unabashed opinion to reporters, Ruth commented, “I think Lou’s making one of the biggest mistakes a ballplayer can make by keeping up that ‘Iron Man’ stuff. He’s already cut three years off his baseball life with it. He ought to learn how to sit on the bench and rest because the Yankees aren’t going to pay off on how many games in a row he’s played.” Ruth’s words really got under Gehrig’s skin. The Yankee first baseman told writers that he felt fine and knew how much his body could handle. He assured them that he would bench himself if he became a detriment to the club.

            That day arrived in 1939, when Gehrig was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—a progressive neurological disorder that can lead to paralysis and premature death. The feud between Ruth and Gehrig continued until the day of Gehrig’s famous “Luckiest Man” speech, when “The Iron Horse” finally accepted a public gesture of affection from the Babe. 

 Explore this topic further in my latest book release, Lore of the Bambino: 100 Great Babe Ruth Stories, available in April through The Lyons Press.