12/24/2006

Gehrig, the Punter

This is the next brief excerpt from Jonathon Eig's book about Lou Gehrig, Luckiest Man.

This one is from the end of the chapter titled Charmed Life.

On a cool, clear day in the fall of 1928, after the World Series, Gehrig drove to the Bronx to visit a frien who worked year-round at Yankee Stadium, as a groundskeeper. Gehrig and the groundskeeper were chatting in the locker room when Sam Dana approached. Dana, one of Gehrig's former teammates on Columbia's football squad, was playing that winter for the New York Yankees of the National Football League.

Gehrig was a big star now, a World Series hero, and Dana wondered if he'd taken on airs. He wondered if Gehrig would remember him. He said hello, and Gehrig greeted him warmly.

"He hadn't changed a bit," Dana recalled. "I introduced him to all the fellas, and he greeted them all in his own shy way."

Dana waited until Gehrig had shaken hands with each member of the football team and then started to say goodbye. But Gehrig was in no rush to get home.

"I'll beat you at punting," he said, picking up a football from the locker room and challenging his old teammate to a kicking contest.

Dana and Gehrig walked onto the field. Dana was in his uniform. Gehrig wore a sport coat, slacks, and a pair of oxfords.

Dana was no punter, but he thought he had a chance, given that Gehrig probably hadn't kicked in a while.

"Oh, he won," Dana said. "There was no comparison. Lou kicked it fifty or sixty yards in his street clothes."

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