Product Description
"All these many years down the road, Lou Gehrig's reputation still holds up—as does Ray Robinson's elegant biography."—Bob Costas

Lou Gehrig will go down in history as one of the best ballplayers of all time; he was elected to the Hall of Fame and played in a record-setting 2,130 consecutive games. ALS—known today as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"—robbed him of his physical skills at a relatively young age, and he died in 1941. Ray Robinson re-creates the life of this legendary ballplayer and also provides an insightful look at baseball, including all the great players of that era: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and more. 16 photographs.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 16 reviews)

Nice Account of Gehrig's Life

A well written piece with good research about the life of this great man. Good book for any sports fan.
April 13, 2008

Worth a read for any serious baseball fan

This is the story of Lou in more than just baseball terms, from his humble upbringing, to his marriage and untimely death. The book is full of great stories and insights by someone who has obviously done their homework on the topic. Alot of fact-correcting with regards to the Ruth-Gehrig squabbles, and sets the record straight on aot of issues. It is not a "pageturner", but I came away feeling like I learned a great deal about a baseball legend I thought I knew alot about.
October 25, 2007

A lively writing style blends history and biography

Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig In His Time charts the life and accomplishments of a truly legendary ball player, plus author Ray Robinson provides the reader with a wealth of background details on the era of baseball through the Depression years. Most of all, it's a recreation of the man who played over two thousand consecutive games before he was diagnosed with the fatal disease named after him. A lively writing style blends history and biography, setting the times and baseball events for newcomers to the sport and providing a vivid account of a legend. Highly recommended: even non-baseball readers will find it engrossing.

July 04, 2006

Lou Gehrig Deserves Better

Lou Gehrig is a baseball legend. He played on the dynastic New York Yankees teams of the 1920s and 1930s alongside Babe Ruth. He had a .340 lifetime batting average and 493 career home runs. He set a record of 2,130 consecutive games played, a record that stood for decades. And he died of ALS in 1941 at age 38, a disease that now bears his name in the recollections of most Americans. His story, with proper dramatic license, was portrayed in the classic baseball movie, "The Pride of the Yankees," with Gary Cooper as Gehrig in what many consider the actor's greatest performance.

Ray Robinson, a sports journalist and editor, tells this story in "Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig and His Time." It is a book very much in the genre of many other conventional sports biographies. It is a serviceable biography at best, and far from great. In it we learn about one of the greatest stars of major league baseball in the pre-World War II era. If you want a basic introduction to the life and career of Lou Gehrig this book is fine. If you want a well-researched, thoughtful, and sophisticated biography of the Yankee great go elsewhere. This work is very much a "once over lightly" treatment of a person who deserves better.
October 08, 2005

The Soul Of The Iron Horse

In "Iron Horse", Ray Robinson gives the reader an introduction to the Lou Gehrig persona. More than a list of records and triumphs of the baseball star, we meet the human being behind the records. I always had the impression that Gehrig was a good man, whereas Babe Ruth was only a good baseball player. This book confirms that impression.

Growing up the son of German immigrants, Gehrig had the disadvantage of being something of an outsider in his own world. Baseball was just one avenue he traveled in his efforts to advance himself. Various jobs and Columbia University were other options pursued by Lou. His parents discouraged him from playing a game which they did not understand. When Lou had to choose between Columbia University and baseball, his parents urged the University, while a professor recommended baseball. Going to work every day was not extraordinary for Lou. That was how his parents raised him.

In his chosen trade, Lou achieved excellence and attention wherever he played. Lou lived the thrill of playing baseball, and as a Yankee to boot! Lou always considered himself the luckiest man alive, even as he lived in the shadow of two giants, Babe Ruth at the start of his career, and Joe DiMaggio toward the end. Through it all, Lou considered himself a lucky man.

Robinson leads the reader through a character study of his boyhood hero. We see Lou's relationships with his loving parents who could never understand the stage on which he strode. His wife, who gave him joy while suffering his mother's resentment, would be his solace in his illness. His relationships with his team mates, particularly Babe Ruth, get much attention. In this book we see Gehrig as a man not only driven by passions and wants, but guided by a sense of right and wrong. He was the moral compass of the Yankees. This trait prevented him from ever being the close friend of Ruth with whom he is so commonly associated in the public mind.

Driven, perhaps, by contemporary interests, Lou's earnings are frequently reported. We are brought to understand that even a star of Gehrig's luminance earned a large salary, but still needed to work when he retired. Lou found post baseball employment in a department of the city in which he grew up, achieved stardom and gradually deteriorated and died.

The illness of the only patient to give his name to a disease forms much of the latter sections of the book. Robinson tries to give an accurate report of how the disease affected Lou without over exaggerating its effects. We travel with Lou throughout his slump, ending of the streak and his gradual deterioration. At the end we have seen all 37 years of his remarkable and admirable life.

Although the reader is introduced to the persona of Lou Gehrig, there is plenty of baseball too. This is an excellent book for any baseball fan with a desire to into the soul of one of baseball's most noble knights.
February 02, 2005

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
by Jonathan Eig

The Pride of the Yankees (Collector's Edition)
Directed by Sam Wood
Starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth, Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea
MGM (Video & DVD)

Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man
by David A. Adler
by Terry Widener

Babe: The Legend Comes to Life
by Robert Creamer

Ty Cobb (Sport in American Life)
by Charles C. Alexander