Gehrig's last game

During Sunday's this off-season, there brief excerpts from Luckiest Man, Jonathon Eig's biography of Lou Gehrig, are being posted here.

On April 30, 1939, Gehrig played the final game of his 2,130 consecutive games. It was a Sunday afternoon against the Washington Senators and 23,000 showed up to watch.

The Yankees trailed in the bottom of the eighth inning and Gehrig stepped to the plate for what would be the final time of his career.

His final at-bat came in the eighth inning against Pete Appleton, a right-handed journeyman relief pitcher. With two men on base, Gehrig had one more chance to get the Yankees back in the game. He had one more chance to resuscitate his spirit. He swung and hit the ball hard -- harder perhaps than he'd hit it all season -- and the ball flew on a long arc to straightaway center field. Had he swung a fraction of a second sooner and pulled the ball to right field, he might have had a home run. Instead, George Case ran it down for the out.

"A hit would have won the ballgame for the Yankees," Gehrig said later, "but I missed..."

In the top of the ninth inning, another play unfolded that would haunt him in the days and weeks to come. With no runners on base Buddy Meyer hit a grounder to first. It was a routine play, not requiring much movement or agility. Ordinarily, Gehrig would have grabbed the ball, dashed a few steps to his left, and stepped on the base for the out. But by the time he got his glove on the ball and set his feet, he could see that he wasn't going to beat Meyer to the base. The simple act of shifting his momentum from right to left had taken too much time. Motions that he had once made reflexively now required slow, separate actions, as if his brain were pausing to glance at an instruction manual. Johnny Murphy, pitching in relief for the Yanks, saw that the first baseman was in trouble and sprinted from the mound to help out. Gehrig flipped the ball to Murphy, who stepped on the base for the out.

When Gehrig got back to the dugout, some of his teammates slapped him on the back and offered congratulations for making the play. He watched as the Yankees tried and failed to score in the bottom of the ninth, losing the game 3-2. But all he could think about were those slaps on the back. Had his level of play slipped so much that he deserved congratulations for making easy outs? "Heavens," he asked himself, "has it reached that stage?"