Gehrig's Contract

On Sunday's during the off-season, there are excerpts of Jonathon Eig's biography of Lou Gehrig, Luckiest Man here on Rattler Radio.

This week's excerpt is from the start of the chapter titled Goodbye, Mr. Pipp. It is the story of how Gehrig spent his time between the 1923 and 1924 seasons and receiving his 1924 contract.

The sunshine and glory of the summer faded fast for Gehrig. As the grass turned brown and autumn leaves grew stiff and fell, his mood darkened. He took a job in the fall of 1923 as an office clerk at the New York Edison Company -- in part because his family needed the money, and in part because he feared the Yankees might lose interest in him at any moment.

He should have known better. He should have known that Jake Rupert and Miller Huggins viewed him as one of their brightest young discoveries, and a bargain, too. If he'd made any close friends on the team, they probably would have told him as much. Yankee management fully intended to re-sign him, but they were hoping to do so at the lowest possible price. In the meantime, it didn't hurt to keep him guessing.

"The fall dragged along," Gehrig recalled in an interview eight years later, "and I didn't hear anything from the Yankees. I didn't know how baseball business was done or when contracts were sent out. Now and then I'd see in the papers that this club or that had signed some of its players and I began to wonder if the Yanks were going to sign me again....I began to pay more attention to my work with the Edison Company and to hope for a raise."

As for baseball, he said, "I figured I'd had my fling."

Finally, at the end of January, the mail brought a new contract, offering him $2,750 for the 1924 season. Gehrig was so pleased that the thought of asking for more never seriously occurred to him. "I signed it and sent it back in a hurry for fear they'd change their minds." he said. For the first time, though certainly not the last, the Yankees took advantage of Gehrig's timidity and his overarching desire to please. Ed Barrow, the team's general manager, knew that several big-league clubs had expressed interest in trading for Gehrig. If the first baseman had appreciated his value he might have negotiated a better deal. But he was not the sort to spy an opening and make a run for it. His approach was to tiptoe, taking care not to step too quickly and fall.