Why the New York Yankees Are the Greatest! Part Two

Just three years after Babe Ruth came to the Yankees, the New York team signed a young man from Columbia University. Louis Henry Gehrig had been so good in college it was reported he hit balls over buildings.  Gehrig himself would become a Yankee legend and an icon. Before he became an athlete with a disease named after him, he was first a rookie and then the inimitable "Iron Horse."  Lou Gehrig only played in 13 games for the Bombers in 1923 and only appeared in 10 games in 1924. The Yankees already had a very good first baseman in Wally Pipp and there seemed to be no place for the college kid to break in. But then, one day in 1925, Pipp was not feeling 100 percent. Miller Huggins, the Yankee manager, inserted Lou at first with everyone probably thinking it would only be until the veteran Pipp felt better.   Gehrig would go on to play in 2,130 straight games before amyotropic lateral sclerosis would weaken him and destroy his once powerful body. For 14 straight seasons ... (link)