1.) Deanna at Seattle Marinerds has posted a review of Luckiest Man. Head over there and take a look.
2.) Jonathon Eig has another biography coming out shortly. This one is about Jackie Robinson and is in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of Robinson's 1947 season with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. Looks like I've got a book to read on that first road trip of the year.
To the excerpt.
This one is from the chapter A Night at the Opera and it has nothing to do with the Marx Brothers. Gehrig has just married Eleanor and she was trying to get him to branch out a bit more. Get his name in the public with endorsements, songs, interviews, appearances. Sometimes it didn't work out the way she expected.
The marketing of Lou Gehrig was not always easy. General Foods paid him to drop his affiliation with Wheaties and endorse its Huskies brand cereal. All he had to do was pose for some pictures and mention the Huskies brand on a few radio broadcasts. One day, Gehrig appeared on Robert Ripley's Believe it or Not, a General Foods network radio program with an enormous national audience. Ripley went into his windup. How did Gehrig get so strong? What did he eat? Did he enjoy any special breakfast foods? The celebrity endorser never hesistated: "Wheaties!" he blurted.
Gehrig's flub became a national news story. Humiliated, he wrote to officials at General Foods and offered to return their money. The company refused. The amusing incident earned Huskies more publicity than its manufacturer could have hoped for. Ripley was delighted as well -- so delighted in fact that he invited the slugger back on his program and threw him the same pitch. This time, Gehrig hit it right on the button: "My favorite is Huskies," he said, "and I've tried them all."
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