I love Baseball records. Some wild things have happened on this date in Baseball:
*In 1909, Honus Wagner steals his way around the bases in a game against the Cubs. It was the 4th time he’d done it.

*Eight years later, Hippo Vaughn and Fred Toney, pitching for the Cubs and Reds respectively, both have no-hitters going through the 9th inning. In the top of the 10th, with a man on 3rd, Reds hitter Jim Thorpe swings a bunt toward the mound which Vaughn fields and fires home to catcher Art Wilson, who freezes and lets the ball simply hit his chest protector. The Reds win 1-0.
*in 1954, Stan Musial (Mickey Mantle’s idol), hit 5 homers in a doubleheader against the Giants. Future Detroit Tiger Nate Colbert, 8 years old at the time, was in attendance. He would go on to become the only player in history to match Musial’s feat.

But one event stands out above all. On this day in 1939, The Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig, voluntarily benches himself for the good of the team, ending his consecutive games played at 2,130. His streak ran June 1, 1927 to May 2, 1939. The player Lou replaced in the ’27 lineup, Wally Pipp, who sat the game out due to a headache, later said he’d taken the most expensive aspirin in history.

Lou’s replacement in the lineup, Babe Dahlgren, doubled and homered in a rout of the Tigers 22-2. Dahlgren, well aware of Lou’s streak, approached Gehrig late in the game and asked him to play 1st for the last inning or two to preserve the streak, but Lou refused. He never played again. Lou and Dahlgren on that very day:

The Yanks were in a 3-way tie for 1st, along with Boston and Chicago. Detroit and Washington were only a 1/2 game behind. Lou had a career batting average of .340, and was hitting .143. He didn’t know what was wrong, only that something was wrong. He approached Yanks manager Joe McCarthy in the lobby of the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Lou had extremely high personal standards which he couldn’t live up to, for himself and for his team. “Joe, I’m not helping this team any. I know I look terrible out there. This string of mine doesn’t mean a thing to me. It isn’t fair to the boys for me to stay in there. Joe, I want you to take me out of the lineup today.”

His stats are incredible: .340 career batting average with a career season high .363 in 1934. .361 postseason batting average. 1927 and 1936 American League MVP. 493 Home Runs, 29th all-time. 1,995 RBI’s. 1,508 walks, with 114 of them intentional. 534 doubles with 136 triples.

And he was my Dad’s idol.

In honor of Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games, Today’s Playlist is a SomethingIsHappening compendium of songs about records, albeit a different kind:

#LouGehrig #CalRipkenJr. #Baseball #NewYorkYankees #TheIronHorse #JoeMcCarthy #DetroitTigers #Detroit