The Streak

by John Eisenberg

  The next day, hours before the Yankees played the Senators again, Gehrig and Eleanor abruptly decided to get married—immediately. The mayor of New Rochelle was called in to officiate. Some reports said the ceremony took place at City Hall, while others placed it at the couple’s apartment. Either way, it came together so quickly that Gehrig’s mother did not attend, a clear indication of which woman in his life now held more sway.

  After the noontime ceremony, Gehrig and Eleanor hustled to Yankee Stadium for the game. Even on his wedding day, Gehrig wanted to play. He told his teammates and the press his news. McCarthy congratulated him and put him in the lineup. He went hitless in four at-bats but drove in two runs on sacrifice flies. That night, he took Eleanor out to dinner. Then he played another game the next afternoon.

  12

  Ironmen

  THE BLESSING OF GOOD FORTUNE

  Hours after he became baseball’s all-time consecutive-game leader in St. Louis in 1933, Gehrig sat at the desk in his hotel room and wrote a thank-you note to the Sporting News, which had given him a silver statuette that afternoon.

  “Permit me to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the beautiful trophy which you so kindly presented to me at the game at Sportsman’s Park,” he wrote. “I’ll treasure it as long as I live, along with such honors that baseball has been good enough to give me. However, the continuous game record I have broken required good luck and plenty of breaks more than any outstanding quality of the player. There are so many things likely to keep a player out of a game, twisted ankles, sprains, charley horses, illnesses, etc., that my record proves, more than anything else, that I have been particularly gifted by good fortune.”

  The Sporting News published his note, and many fans surely smiled when they read it. It was classic Gehrig, so humble and gentlemanly. Babe Ruth would never have admitted he was more lucky than good! But Gehrig meant it. The accepted narrative about his streak was that it was a product of his being tough, determined, and resilient, all of which was true. But the gift of “good fortune” also played a role, and Gehrig knew it. His humility was not falsely ginned up for public consumption.

  A couple of years earlier, he had accompanied other major leaguers, including Lefty Grove and Mickey Cochrane, on a goodwill tour of Japan after the 1931 season. Their powerful squad swept all 17 games it played against Japanese college teams and commercial clubs, often winning by more than 10 runs as fans filled ballparks in hopes of seeing Gehrig or another American clout a home run, a feat seldom seen in Japan.

  Midway through the tour, the Americans faced a crafty pitcher from Keio University whose tosses dove, spun, and darted around the plate. Misreading a curveball’s break, Gehrig leaned in too far, and the ball hit his right hand where it gripped the bat. He stepped away, shaking his hand in pain, and immediately left the game. X-rays revealed two broken bones. Unable to play, Gehrig watched the rest of the tour from the dugout with his hand bandaged.

  At the time, he had played in 1,042 straight regular-season games, 19 World Series games, and dozens of exhibitions, all without sitting one out. Missing a game was a new experience, and he did not like it, having wanted to put on a show in Japan. But the injury illustrated his good fortune. When a pitch hit you in the wrong place, it did not matter how strong you were or whether you were determined to play every day. You had no choice but to sit and watch.

  Physically, baseball was not nearly as dangerous as football, which Gehrig played in high school and college. Still, players were hit by pitches and spiked on the bases all the time. Pulled muscles and broken bones were commonplace. Gehrig had experienced his share of injuries, but none that forced him to miss a game. When one finally did, he was playing an exhibition game in November more than 6,000 miles from home, not taking on an American League opponent in a regular-season game. His consecutive-game streak was not impacted.

  Yes, he was lucky.

  “You need luck to play in a lot of games in a row, no doubt about it,” said Billy Williams, a Hall of Fame outfielder for the Chicago Cubs, in an interview for this book. “So many things can happen. You slide hard going into second and get hurt. You run into the fence chasing a line drive and get hurt. You get beaned in the head at the plate. You can get knocked out of the lineup almost anytime, in almost any way. The odds are it will catch up with you at some point unless you have some luck.”

  Williams, a career .290 hitter who set the National League consecutive-game record in 1969 and held it for 14 years, said a streak is similarly under constant threat away from the ballpark. “Just regular life, stuff happens. You sleep funny and wake up with a stiff neck, so you can’t swing the bat. I had to deal with that. Or you catch the flu, and there goes your streak. You can play through a lot of things, but not everything,” Williams said.

  The presence of luck, both good and bad, in almost infinite iterations, is evident in every streak. Steve Brodie stayed healthy for long enough to almost pass George Pinkney and set a record in 1897 (not that he knew it), but a sore arm ended his streak. Fred Luderus established a threshold for Everett Scott to pass in 1919, but only because Al Munro Elias talked Luderus’s manager into keeping his streak going. Scott admitted that “a good percentage of luck” helped him play in 1,307 straight games. There was the time he played after being knocked out cold during batting practice. There was the time he was told not to play when a nasty boil arose on his head, seemingly ending his streak until a storm washed out that day’s game and his boil burst, enabling him to play the next day—and, as it turned out, every day for another four years.

  Richie Ashburn, a fleet outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies destined for the Hall of Fame, thought luck was on his side as he ran up a playing streak of 730 straight games in the early 1950s. But then he collided with a teammate while chasing a line drive in an exhibition game and suffered a leg injury that ended his streak. Steve Garvey also thought luck was on his side until he emerged from a play at the plate with a broken finger in 1983, abruptly ending the fourth-longest streak in history.

  “A freak play in so many ways,” Garvey recalled in an interview. “The pitcher throws a wild pitch past the catcher. I’m on third base and start for the plate. I would have made it easily except the ball caroms off the part of the façade behind home that is exposed concrete, not padded. So it bounces right back to the catcher, who throws it to the pitcher covering home in plenty of time. I’m dead. The pitcher straddles the plate, which they teach you not to do, and I tried to slide around him instead of into him and possibly injure him. My thumb gets caught and . . . that’s it.”

  His wistfulness still evident more than three decades later, Garvey cited the ways in which the play was unfortunate for him. “If the ball doesn’t carom off the brick; if the pitcher doesn’t straddle the plate; if the pitcher doesn’t throw a wild pitch in the first place, then I keep playing,” he said.

  Garvey assessed the calculus of a streak as “75 percent philosophy, determination, and will, 20 percent divinity, and 5 percent luck.” And as Billy Williams noted, some of that luck and divinity is needed off the field. Gus Suhr, a first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1930s, experienced enough good fortune on the field to set a National League consecutive-game record that would stand for more than two decades. But it might have stood for longer if not for a telegram he received in 1936.

  A product of the same San Francisco sandlots that produced Joe DiMaggio and Tony Lazzeri, Suhr was a lanky ballplayer with movie-star looks—a square jaw, dark hair, and dimples that creased his cheeks. Nimble in the field and consistent at the plate, he was a steadying force on unpredictable Pittsburgh teams. His streak began on September 11, 1931, and Pie Traynor, the Pirates’ venerable player-manager, quickly learned to rely on him. Suhr banged out 10 home runs, 11 triples, and 31 doubles in 1933. The next year, he drove in 103 runs.

  Gehrig’s streak had become newsworthy at the time, increasing the attention paid to feats of endurance, and in 1935 sportswriters noticed Suhr w
as approaching the National League consecutive-game record, held by Eddie Brown, an outfielder who had played in 618 straight games for the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves in the 1920s. Although that streak paled next to Gehrig’s, it was a league record, and Suhr was unabashed about wanting to break it. Traynor helped him do it.

  After a torn thumbnail forced him to sit out the first eight innings of a game against the Giants on May 20, 1935, Suhr asked Traynor if he could play the top of the ninth in right field, just enough to constitute an official appearance and keep his streak going. On September 15 and September 16 of that season, he tied and broke Brown’s record, again by playing just a half inning of defense each time.

  Overall, Suhr did not start 9 of the Pirates’ last 14 games in 1935, but his brief appearances, either as a defensive replacement or pinch hitter, kept his streak going. After driving in 118 runs and making the National League All-Star team in 1936, he passed 800 games in a row early in the 1937 season, having set a goal of becoming the first National League player to surpass a thousand games in a row. Then, in early June, while in Boston to play the Braves, he received a telegram bearing the news that his mother had died in California.

  Suhr could not make it to the West Coast in time for the funeral, but he felt uncomfortable playing while his mother was being laid to rest. He decided to honor her by sitting out a three-game series against the Giants at the Polo Grounds. On June 5, 1937, Suhr missed a game for the first time in six years, ending his streak at 822 games. He spent the day with relatives in Brooklyn.

  After missing those three games, Suhr played in every game for the rest of the 1937 season, ending with a .278 average and 97 runs batted in. Then he played in every game in 1938 until late in the season. If not for his mother’s death, he would have joined Gehrig, Scott, and Sewell as the only major leaguers between 1876 and 1969 to play in more than a thousand games in a row.

  In an interview for this book, Ripken described his Orioles teammate Eddie Murray as an “Ironman without the status of being an Ironman,” meaning he was available as often as Ripken and similarly in the lineup day after day, month after month, and year after year, yet he sat out just enough games to keep him from becoming known for his endurance. “It’s really no different. Eddie played in almost every game, almost every year,” Ripken said.

  Indeed, while with the Orioles in his prime, from 1977 through 1988, Murray appeared in 96.6 percent of the team’s games. He missed fewer than five games in seven seasons, including 1984, when, like Ripken, he achieved perfect attendance. After playing in a Baltimore win over Cleveland on April 17, 1985, he had streaks of 171 straight games and 1,539 straight innings. But that night he learned his sister had died and left the club to be with his family for the funeral in California.

  When he returned after missing five games, he started a new streak, playing in every game for the rest of the 1985 season and every game in 1986 until early July, when a hamstring pull ended his run at 230 straight games. He had played with the injury for a week, serving as the designated hitter in three games and pinch-hitting twice, until it became clear he really needed to take time off and let his hamstring heal. When he went on the disabled list—for the first time in his career—he had missed just one of the Orioles’ previous 400 games. Yet his younger teammate was the budding Ironman.

  Over the years, numerous major leaguers have, like Murray, shared the attitude Ripken and Gehrig possessed about playing every day, but experienced bad luck in some form—an illness, an injury, a family event, a managerial decision—that limited their consecutive-game achievement. Del Pratt, an infielder for the Browns, Yankees, Red Sox, and Tigers between 1912 and 1924, played six full seasons of games, but never more than 363 in a row. The Chicago Cubs’ Ernie Banks played as many full seasons (six) as his teammate Billy Williams, but only Williams is remembered as an Ironman.

  Lou Brock, an outfielder for the Cubs and Cardinals who is among the most prolific base stealers in history, never completed a full season of games, but he missed few—usually when the manager demanded that he sit out a contest that he could have played. “You never saw Lou in the trainer’s room, and I mean that, never,” said Tim McCarver, a catcher for the Cardinals in the 1960s, who played 21 years in the major leagues and later became a prominent television broadcaster. “You couldn’t hurt Lou. That’s a tremendous compliment to have that said about him, that you couldn’t hurt him, which meant he was always available.”

  McCarver stated that players such as Brock and Murray were just as durable as Gehrig and Ripken even though they never set records. “If a guy plays 155 games a year, it’s the equivalent of playing 162,” McCarver said. “That’s not to diminish what Gehrig and Ripken did, which was more than admirable. But what was really important was they were available for all those games. The same was and is true for many other players who only missed a few games. The only difference is their managers or front offices made the choice not to play them.”

  Of the many developments that can end a streak, a managerial decision can most frustrate a player. His manager rests him, thinking he needs a break because he is tired, slumping, or has a poor record against the opposing team’s starting pitcher; any one of a number of rationales can be cited. Regardless, the player has no control over the decision. The manager makes it, ostensibly for the good of the team.

  On August 6, 1955, Chicago’s feisty All-Star second baseman, Nellie Fox, sat out a game against the Orioles in Baltimore, but not by choice. He had played in 274 straight games at the time and was hitting .305 on a team jockeying with the Yankees and Indians for first place in the American League. He did not want to miss the game; in fact, he was furious about it. But his manager, Marty Marion, was adamant. “Guys need rest. They’re dragging,” Marion told reporters. The White Sox were on a 19-game road trip.

  With Fox out of the lineup, the Sox quickly fell six runs behind. Fox paced back and forth in the dugout, muttering and swearing. He later called it “the most miserable day I ever spent in baseball,” to which Marion responded, “It was the most miserable day of my life, too, having to listen to him gripe from the bench.”

  When Fox returned to Marion’s lineup the next day, a Chicago Tribune headline blared SOX RESTORE LITTLE NELL TO 2D. Neither Marion nor his successor, Al Lopez, who took over in 1957, dared rest Fox again. He was an indispensable leadoff man, the heart of the club. When the White Sox won the American League pennant in 1959, Fox hit .306 and was voted the league’s MVP.

  His playing streak reached 600 games in a row during the pennant-winning 1959 season, and it stood at 798 on September 4, 1960, when Fox checked into the hospital with a high fever, ending what would have been the longest consecutive-game streak since Gehrig’s—1,098 games—if Marion had not forced him to sit out that game in Baltimore.

  Without question, Pete Rose is the ultimate “Ironman without the status of being an Ironman.” The all-time major league hits leader is not often referenced with Ripken and Gehrig only because of what an Ironman is perceived to be—that is, someone who plays in hundreds or thousands of games consecutively. But using other metrics, Rose compares favorably with Ripken and Gehrig as an exemplar of extreme endurance—more favorably than do Scott, Garvey, Williams, and others renowned as Ironmen.

  Games Played in a Career

  Rose holds the major league record, having participated in 3,562 games over 24 seasons. He played in 561 more games than Ripken, who is No. 8 on the all-time list, and almost 1,400 more games than Gehrig, who is tied for No. 159.

  Full Seasons of Games

  Ripken holds the record, having achieved perfect attendance in 15 seasons. Gehrig did it 13 times. Then comes Rose with 10, which is more than Garvey, Scott, or Joe Sewell, each of whom did it 8 times.

  Best Decade

  Ripken and Gehrig are the only major leaguers to play an entire decade without taking a day off. But Rose almost did it between 1973 and 1982, sitting out just 4 games. Billy Williams missed 10 games in his best decade.
Nellie Fox missed 15.

  In the accepted Ironman metric, though, Rose lags behind the others. His longest playing streak was 745 games. It is the 12th-longest streak in history, hardly a triviality, and Rose also had a run of 678 games, making him the only player with two of the 20 longest streaks. Still, his best is well short of the thresholds set by Ripken and Gehrig.

  As one of the sport’s most decorated players, Rose surely had other matters on his mind besides playing streaks. Yet he made it clear that he did care about them, indicating that he valued what they represented and regretted the injuries and managerial decisions that denied him a record-setting streak.

  He eventually left the sport in disgrace, banished for gambling, denied a place in the Hall of Fame. If not the most polarizing player in history, he is close. But long after Rose’s career ended, many of those he played with and against still respected the determination and tenacity he consistently exhibited, even if he irritated them at times. And Rose, like many from their generation, could hardly bear to watch current players not try to play every day, citing various aches and pains as a reason to sit out.

  “Pete had an interesting idea: players should be paid on a day-to-day basis, getting their money every day if they said they were available to play. That would change things, wouldn’t it?” Tim McCarver said. “It’s an extreme idea, and obviously it’s never going to happen, but that’s Pete. He was a guy who was always ready to go.”

  A Cincinnati native, Rose was the son of a bank teller who had been a standout athlete, best known as a barrel-chested, rugged halfback on a semipro football team. When Rose first broke into the majors, playing for his hometown Reds in the early 1960s, he exhibited a style that borrowed liberally from his father’s sport, playing with such rugged abandon that the Reds’ veterans initially thought he was kidding. Who was this young guy sprinting all-out to first after drawing a walk? A bubble-gum-chomping infielder with a crew cut and dark eyes that blazed with intensity, he dove wildly for balls, slid headfirst on steals, and sprinted to and from the dugout between innings. Whitey Ford, the New York Yankees’ ace pitcher, mockingly called him “Charlie Hustle” after observing him dashing around the field during a spring training game.