The Streak

by John Eisenberg

  It should have been an exciting day, but Sewell was heartsick. “Ray Chapman was my hero,” he recalled later. “I felt the Indians’ pennant hopes died with his passing. I made up my mind as I traveled north on the train that I would forget I was Joe Sewell and imagine I was Chapman fighting to bring honor and glory to Cleveland.”

  He arrived in Cleveland with little more than a new suit of clothes, bought during a stopover in Cincinnati. Tris Speaker, the Indians’ star center fielder, was in his first season as a player-manager. A 32-year-old Texan who had worked on a ranch before playing pro baseball, Speaker felt an affinity for Sewell and let him watch several games from the bench before putting him in the lineup. “Are you sure?” Sewell asked, feeling unprepared. But he was ready. Borrowing a 40-ounce black bat from a teammate, he knocked a triple in his first at-bat. “When I got to third, I thought, ‘Shucks, this ain’t so tough,’” he said years later.

  He collected 23 hits in the Indians’ final 22 games, and they won the pennant, but since he had been added to the roster so late, he was not eligible to play in the World Series. The Indians asked for an exemption because of Chapman’s death, and the National League champions, the Brooklyn Robins, agreed to waive the roster rule. Sewell struggled in the Series, but the Indians won.

  The next year, he became the team’s everyday shortstop and hit .318 while striking out just 17 times in almost 700 plate appearances. All those hours spent hitting rocks with a broomstick had paid off. The job was his. By late in the 1922 season, Sewell had played in more than 300 straight games.

  Speaker, however, was not a proponent of playing streaks. A major league star since 1909, he had played a full season of games only once. He believed in players taking at least one short respite every season, and he gave Sewell one in early September 1922, sitting the young shortstop for a weekend of games in Chicago even though Sewell was hitting .304.

  After that, however, Sewell never rested, not even while committing a startling 59 errors in 1923. Ordinarily, a shortstop that mistake-prone would sit on the bench now and then, but Speaker needed Sewell’s bat. He hit .353 and drove in 109 runs while committing all those errors. The next year, he led the American League with 45 doubles. In 1925, he hit .336 and, amazingly, struck out just four times in almost 700 plate appearances. In 1926, he batted .324 and struck out just six times.

  After the 1926 season, Speaker faced game-fixing allegations and resigned. His replacement, Jack McAllister, continued to play Sewell every day. With Everett Scott’s streak having ended in 1925, Sewell now owned the longest active consecutive-game streak in the majors—784 straight games by the end of the 1927 season.

  The Indians had become also-rans, lagging behind the powerful Yankees. In 1928, they hired a new manager, Roger Peckinpaugh, a former shortstop for the Yankees and Red Sox who valued defense. Sewell’s run as the everyday shortstop ended. He played third base part-time that season and shifted permanently the next year.

  On June 16, 1929, he became the second major leaguer, after Scott, to play in a thousand straight games. His streak was up to 1,091 by the end of the season, and Sewell said he planned to keep going until he passed Scott and became the all-time “iron man.” It was a goal that seemed attainable, he said. Other than that weekend in 1922 when Speaker rested him, he had never missed a game since becoming a major leaguer.

  Early in the 1930 season, though, he ran a high fever while on a road trip. To keep his streak alive in St. Louis on April 29, he batted in the top of the first and left the game after grounding out. The Associated Press sent out a story stating that his pursuit of Everett Scott’s consecutive-game record was “in jeopardy.”

  He still had a high fever the next day, but Peckinpaugh let him play, and he socked a line drive into right field in the top of the first. The ball landed in the grass and rolled to the wall as Sewell raced around the bases, mustering his flagging strength. As soon as he stopped at third, he bent at the waist and signaled that he needed to come out. A pinch runner replaced him.

  The next day, the Indians took a train to Boston, and Sewell’s condition did not improve. When he woke with the same high fever on May 2, hours before the opener of a series with the Red Sox, he decided enough was enough—he was too sick to keep going. His streak ended at 1,103 games, 204 shy of Scott’s record.

  The Associated Press erroneously reported that Sewell’s streak had “started in 1920 and until yesterday he participated in every ball game played by the Indians during this ten-year period.” In fact, he had missed that weekend in Chicago in 1922. If Speaker had played him then, he would have owned the record now, not Scott.

  Sewell missed eight games due to his illness, and when he returned, Peckinpaugh reduced his role, making him a part-time player. His average dropped to .289, and at the end of the 1930 season, he asked the Indians for his release, thinking he could still hit as an everyday player for some team. The Indians obliged his request. Sewell went home to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and fielded offers. Connie Mack mailed a contract from Philadelphia and telegraphed, “Don’t sign with anyone else until you get it.” The Yankees sent a scout to Sewell’s home to emphasize how much they wanted him.

  The Yankees won out, and in his first year with baseball’s big-name club, he played third base and batted second. Joe McCarthy did not play him in every game, but he only missed about one per week while proving that, indeed, he could still perform at a high level, hitting .302 and scoring 102 runs, his career high.

  In an era when teams asked players to share hotel rooms on road trips, Sewell and Gehrig became roommates. Sewell was four years older, and he was married and from the South, unlike Gehrig, a single New Yorker, but they had a lot in common. Both had gone to college. Both were “straight arrows.” They spent evenings talking baseball in the hotel lobby or their room while their teammates hit the bars. “Joe is the rural type, in bed by 10 and up at six,” one sportswriter reported. Gehrig kept the same hours.

  They were opposites in size and as hitters—Gehrig a broad-shouldered slugger, Sewell a slender contact specialist—but they were alike in their desire to play every day. When Sewell’s consecutive-game streak ended in 1929, Gehrig’s became the longest active streak in the majors at more than 700 games.

  Gehrig respected his new teammate and heeded Sewell’s advice about the importance of making contact at the plate. Up to that point in his career, Gehrig, like Ruth and other power hitters, had piled up strikeouts, averaging more than 73 per season as he “swung for the fences.” But he struck out just 56 times in 1931, Sewell’s first season in New York, and lowered that to 38 in 1932. Never again, in fact, would Gehrig strike out as often as he did early in his career, and though he never credited Sewell, his roommate’s influence seems obvious.

  No record exists of their discussing consecutive-game streaks, but considering how much time they spent together, it is likely the subject came up. By the time the Yankees released Sewell after the 1933 season, Gehrig had played through a back ailment and broken bones and had set a record for consecutive playing.

  Sewell was 34 when the Yankees dropped him. This time, there was no rush to Tuscaloosa to sign him. His bat was declining. His speed was diminished. It was not unusual for a major leaguer to keep playing beyond age 34—Ruth was still going at 38—but Sewell never played again. Insiders wondered if he had worn himself out by taking so few breaks during his career.

  Stationed across the infield from him for three years in the early 1930s, Gehrig had an intimate view of Sewell’s decline. But Gehrig obviously did not buy the theory that Sewell’s consecutive-game streak had hastened his demise. Ignoring the whispers, Gehrig kept playing every day.

  On May 9, 1932, the Yankees had a home game scheduled against the St. Louis Browns, with the first pitch at 3:30 p.m. Gehrig usually arrived at Yankee Stadium several hours early, in time to change into his uniform and take part in pregame drills, but on this Monday, he never went to the ballpark. He went to court instead.

  His mo
ther, Christina, had been in a car accident, and a passenger riding with her had filed a lawsuit seeking $40,000 in damages. The case was due to be heard that afternoon. Gehrig had played in 1,060 straight games, but his court date was more important. Christina had to testify, and Gehrig was not about to let his mother experience that alone. He also might have to testify, as he had been in the car when the accident occurred.

  Around noon, the Yankees announced they were postponing the game and rescheduling it as part of a doubleheader on July 10. Their rationale was “threatening weather conditions,” the New York Times reported. But while it was a cool, cloudy day in New York, with the forecast calling for rain, no drops ever fell. The Yankees and Browns could have played.

  Conspiracy theorists have long speculated that the Yankees’ owner, Jacob Ruppert, called off the game to protect Gehrig’s streak, knowing the first baseman had a court date and might not be available. Ruppert certainly liked the streak and thought it was important. Asked why he kept it up, Gehrig told New York World-Telegram sportswriter Dan Daniel, “I am interested in it, the fans seem to be, and Ruppert mentions it often enough for me to believe I ought to go as far as I can with it.” Ruppert wanted the Yankees in the headlines. He had traded for Ruth, turned the team into a winner, and built Yankee Stadium. Gehrig’s impressive streak seemed to be part of that narrative.

  But it is doubtful Ruppert postponed the May 9 game just to preserve Gehrig’s streak. Given the gloomy weather forecast and the fact that the Browns were baseball’s worst team, the game would have drawn a paltry crowd; when the teams played the next day at Yankee Stadium, they drew so few fans that no attendance was listed. Played in warmer weather, as part of a July doubleheader, the game would attract a much larger crowd and bring in more cash.

  In the years before television revenue reconfigured baseball economics, teams depended heavily on ticket sales. It is interesting to speculate about Gehrig’s streak possibly having received a dubious stay of execution, but Ruppert often postponed early-season games and rescheduled them for summertime dates when more fans would attend. In 1932, 7 of the Yankees’ first 25 games were pushed back. When the May 9 game was made up on July 10, the Yankees sold 31,000 tickets. From a financial standpoint, Ruppert’s decision was a no-brainer.

  And even if the game had gone on as scheduled on May 9, Gehrig probably would have made it to the ballpark in time to keep his streak going. He was never called to testify.

  As Dan Daniel recounted the story later, Gehrig did not know he was nearing Everett Scott’s consecutive-game record. Daniel is the one who told him.

  According to Daniel, the two ate breakfast together at the Yankees’ hotel in Washington on July 4, 1933, and then chatted in the lobby afterward.

  “Do you have any idea how many games in a row you’ve played?” Daniel asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Gehrig replied. “I do know that I started in 1925 and this is 1933, so I guess it’s somewhere in the hundreds.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows went up. “No, it’s more than that,” he said. He promised to identify the number and let Gehrig know.

  It took a precise eye to determine exactly where the Iron Horse’s streak stood. Many sportswriters did not recall that he had pinch-hit the day before he became a regular in the Yankees lineup in 1925. More recently, during the 1932 season, a game between the Yankees and Tigers had to be replayed after the Yankees batted out of order and the Tigers successfully protested, and Will Harridge, president of the American League, ruled that both the invalidated game and the replayed game would count toward Gehrig’s streak.

  The day after Daniel brought it up in Washington, he told the first baseman the streak had stood at 1,197 straight games when the 1933 season began, so Gehrig was now within 25 games or so of Scott’s all-time record of 1,307.

  It is unknown whether Gehrig actually kept count before that conversation, but he did afterward. Several weeks later, he corrected the Yankees press corps when it reported he had played in 1,293 straight games. “The published dope on my consecutive-game record is incorrect,” he told reporters, standing by his locker before a game. “I have played in 1,294 straight games since June 1, 1925. The generally accepted total is short by one. The writers have overlooked that I was a pinch hitter the day before I broke in as a regular on the Yankees. Walter Johnson was pitching and we were getting our fifth straight defeat. I’m sorry to say I flied out to Goose Goslin.”

  He reached into his wallet and pulled out a frayed newspaper clipping containing a box score from June 2, 1925, his first game as a regular and the second game of his streak. The writers printed corrections. Gehrig continued playing.

  The reporters’ focus on his individual achievement did not come at a good time. The Yankees and Senators had battled all season for first place in the American League, but now the pitching-rich Senators had pulled ahead. The Yankees trailed by 5½ games when they traveled to St. Louis to play the lowly Browns.

  On Wednesday, August 16, Gehrig tied Scott’s record before a meager crowd at Sportsman’s Park. There was no mention of his achievement at the park. In fact, the home team celebrated “Rogers Hornsby Day,” in honor of the longtime major league infielder, whom the Browns had just hired as player-manager. The Yankees lost badly, 13–3, to fall 6½ games out.

  “Though individual distinction came to Gehrig, gloom was the lot of the McCarthymen,” the New York Times’ James P. Dawson wrote.

  The next day, Gehrig received much more attention as he became baseball’s all-time Ironman, running his streak to 1,308 games before another small crowd at Sportsman’s Park.

  After the first inning, both teams gathered around home plate for a ceremony. Will Harridge spoke first and gave “eloquent testimonial to a ball player who has established a remarkable record,” St. Louis sportswriter Sid Keener reported. E. G. Brands, editor of the Sporting News, then stepped to the microphone, congratulated Gehrig, and presented him with a silver statuette commemorating the achievement. Gehrig smiled and posed for pictures with Joe Sewell. Harridge had invited Everett Scott, who now ran a bowling alley in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but Scott had sent a telegram saying it was “impossible” for him to attend.

  After the brief ceremony, the game resumed. Ruth hit a home run and Gehrig added a triple. The Yankees took a lead into the bottom of the ninth, but Hornsby smacked a home run to force extra innings, and the Browns won in the 10th. The Yankees were now 7½ games out, their pennant prospects fading fast.

  When reporters asked the 37-year-old Hornsby about Gehrig after the game, he crinkled his ruddy face. Known as “the Rajah,” Hornsby was a down-home Texan who sprinkled his conversations with plainspoken country colloquialisms. “All I know about the guy,” he growled, “is he didn’t get that record sitting on the bench!”

  Sid Keener translated Hornsby’s comment in a column the next day: “He was speaking his own language and no doubt hoping his expression would hit home with his own players. It is known that there are many athletes in the business who are always eager to take a vacation. They have scratched an ankle, twisted a wrist slightly, fallen into a brief batting slump, and things are generally in bad shape with them. They want a ‘time out.’ Ball players of that type will never get along with Hornsby.”

  In a New York Times column, John Kieran, who had covered both Scott and Gehrig, made it clear that he was more impressed with the Iron Horse’s endurance record. Scott, Kieran wrote, was “a careful chap” who wore padded shoes and “never slammed into a wall in pursuit of foul flies.” Deacon “would play shortstop and let it go at that.” By contrast, Kieran wrote, Gehrig “doesn’t wear special shoes” and “in his endeavor to win a ball game” will “run into walls, fall into boxes and plunge down dugout steps in pursuit of foul flies.” Collisions “with players or furniture mean nothing to him,” Kieran wrote, adding that the first baseman “seemed to be made of steel and concrete.”

  Hours after Gehrig broke the record, he received a telegram from Ruppert. It read: “
Accept my heartiest congratulations upon the splendid record of continuous service which you have just completed. My best wishes are with you for many additional years of success.”

  Though now one of baseball’s biggest stars, Gehrig had changed little since he joined the Yankees as a naïve youngster in the 1920s. Still unmarried, he spent many nights with his parents at the home he had bought for them in New Rochelle, a New York suburb. He dated little. His mother’s opinions still influenced his tastes and behaviors.

  In 1932, though, he began dating Eleanor Twitchell, an attractive, spirited brunette from Chicago. They had met before but became reacquainted at a party in Chicago during the 1932 World Series. By the middle of the 1933 season, their relationship was serious enough that they discussed getting married.

  It was a delicate situation. Gehrig’s mother resented having to share his affections after controlling them for so long. But Gehrig was giddily happy. When the Yankees played at Comiskey Park in June 1933, a Chicago paper reported that Twitchell sat in a box by the Yankees’ dugout and “posed for a few thousand photographs while Lou smiled by her side” before the game. A rumor that “Lou and his adored one” had “secretly taken their vows” was “emphatically denied,” but Gehrig confirmed their intention to marry after the season.

  A few months later, Eleanor moved to New York. She and Gehrig found an apartment in New Rochelle, near where Gehrig’s parents lived. As contractors renovated it for the couple, the Yankees were wrapping up a disappointing season; they would finish well behind the Senators.

  On September 28, Gehrig ran his streak to 1,348 straight games with a brief appearance against the Senators at Yankee Stadium. He walked in the first and singled in the third, then came out of the game and watched the rest of the Yankees’ 11–9 win from the dugout. Ruth replaced him at first base because of a “hankering to clown” at a different position, one newspaper reported.