Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig

Description: Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees, cropped from a posed picture of 1937 Major League Baseball All-Stars in Washington, DC.

On April 30, Gehrig went hitless against the Washington Senators. Gehrig had just played his 2,130th consecutive major league game.

On May 2, the next game after a day off, Gehrig approached McCarthy before a game in Detroit against the Tigers and said, "I'm benching myself, Joe," telling the Yankees' skipper that he was doing so "for the good of the team."

McCarthy, put Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren in at first base, telling Gehrig whenever he wanted to play again, the position was his. Gehrig took the lineup card out to the shocked umpires before the game, ending the fourteen-year streak.

Before the game began, the Briggs Stadium announcer told the fans, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time Lou Gehrig's name will not appear on the Yankee lineup in 2,130 consecutive games." The Detroit Tigers' fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes. A wire service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation's newspapers.

Title: Plenty of basehits in these bats. Washington D.C., July 7. A million dollar base-ball flesh is represented in these sluggers of the two All- Star Teams which met in the 1937 game at Griffith Stadium today. Left to right: Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charley Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg, 7/7/37 Creator(s): Harris & Ewing, photographer. Date Created/Published: 1937 July 7. Medium: 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. or smaller. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-hec-22989 (digital file from original negative. Uncropped Image JPEG (85kb) || JPEG (210kb) || TIFF (19.5mb) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. This is a photograph from the Harris & Ewing Collection at the Library of Congress. The photos (and negatives) were given to the library. The restrictions and copyrights of the items, as part of the Instrument of Gift, have expired. There are no known restrictions on the use of these items. Call Number: LC-H22- D-1887 [P&P] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Notes:
Title from unverified caption data received with the Harris & Ewing Collection.
Gift; Harris & Ewing, Inc. 1955.
General information about the Harris & Ewing Collection is available at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.hec
Temp. note: Batch four.

Subjects:
United States--District of Columbia--Washington (D.C.)

Format:
Glass negatives.

Collections:
Harris & Ewing Collection

Part of: Harris & Ewing Collection (Library of Congress)