 This is Jimmy Powers and happy to be coming your way with another Grantland rice story Oh, this is Jimmy Powers transcribed about to bring you another chapter from the Grantland rice story the tumult and the shouting Today we're putting the finger of immortality on some of the great athletes of the past and present who through their unquestioned Stamina rank high in what granny calls iron ore content So with a nod to the young and heart spirit of granny rice I once again open the book and take up the narrative in first person There aren't any iron men left in sport today But then yesterday there weren't any Roger Bannister's John Lundy's or West Santis either The old-time iron man has been replaced by the modern specialist in business as well as sports However, the age of the iron man was largely from another era and I knew my share of them If Ty Cobb wasn't an iron man who was Ty traveled at top speed on a pair of fairly thin legs for 24 years He hunted all winter and he played baseball all spring and summer He played in more than 3,000 ball games and he scored over 4,000 runs always in rapid action If Cy Young wasn't an iron man who was Cy left a small farm in Ohio in 1890 for Cleveland. His square name was Denton But after he had been given a tryout and had knocked the boards right out of the backstop with his high hard one One critic said it looked as if a cyclone had hit the place After that it was no longer Denton Young, but Cy for cyclone Young In Cy's first game he shut out Chicago three to nothing then won more games 511 than most pitchers ever pitched He worked through more than 800 ball games in both leagues and finally retired when the kid named Grover Cleveland Alexander beat him one-to-nothing in 1911 Bob Fitzsimmons had a large vein of iron ore in his system. He was born in Cornwall, England in 1862 18 years before I arrived on this planet Began fighting bouts at 18 and didn't stop until he was 52 Nevermore than an overgrown middleweight himself Fitzs won the heavyweight crown from James J. Corbett at Carson City, Nevada When he was 35 Bill Tilden certainly had an overdose of iron content to play the brand of tennis he featured for 30 years Another Iron Man Jack Quinn was in the majors from 1909 through 1933 and was pitching big league ball at 47 his reason a wife and six kids Willie Hoppe in championship billiard since 1908 is another amazing mixture of stamina and hairline skill Having amassed 51 world titles Willie recently estimated he'd spent more than 100,000 hours over the billiard tables and had walked some 26,000 miles in 59 years of chasing a cue ball There were wrestlers and bike riders Strangler Lewis and Frank Kramer Yes, and Reggie McNamara the cyclist who seemed to go on indefinitely despite hundreds of crack-ups on the velodromes around the world But there are two iron men who are especially close friends One was a baseball player the other a football player their names were Lou Gehrig and Pudge Heffelfinger Both were physical giants Lou Gehrig was slightly over six feet and well over 200 pounds He was perfectly built for power bull-throated and bear of arm The first time I ever saw Gehrig was on a Thanksgiving afternoon in 1922 at New York Columbia was playing Colgate. I brought Dick Harlow Colgate's famous coach home with me after the game Colgate with Eddie Tryon at his best had murdered the Lions But there was a Columbia back who also impressed Dick. He was a young giant named Gehrig About midway in the stampede. He broke his right collar bone He finished the game with a useless right arm and shoulder, but he stuck to his job When I saw Gehrig again, he was a ball player for the New York Yankees Wally Pip was hurt one day in 1925 and Gehrig moved into first base That was Pip's last appearance as a Yankee when Gehrig finally retired after eight games in 1939 He had played two thousand one hundred and thirty consecutive games over a period of fifteen years Without missing his appointment at first base When I played golf with Babe Ruth years ago, we often stopped by to pick up Lou He followed us around the course, but he wouldn't play He had an idea that the baseball swing and the golf swing were too dissimilar That golf was bad for baseball One morning I dropped a ball and handed him Ruth's midiron He took a smooth easy swing and hit a perfect shot out some two hundred yards. I couldn't get him to hit another It was the same with hunting Lou enjoyed hiking along for company, but he wouldn't shoot anything I just can't kill he told me To Gehrig a quail a duck or a dove was a beautiful bird That's the sort of fella he was tremendously powerful, but as gentle as a child If Lou hadn't been struck down when almost in his prime He might have carried his mark to three thousand consecutive games for he never cotton to an injury or illness Lou somehow struggled through eight games of the 39 schedule before he went to manager Joe McCarthy's hotel room in Detroit and Quietly put down his glove After two thousand one hundred and thirty consecutive games the iron horse at thirty six years of age had completed its final run Two years later in June 1941 Lou passed away With the passing of Gehrig and Ruth in seven years. I lost two irreplaceables The other Iron Man was a football player known as William W. Pudge Hufflefinger Born and reared in Minneapolis Pudge was on Walter Camps all-american teams of 1889 1890 and 1891 He was another giant better than six feet and some 190 pounds, but he was faster than most halfbacks Years later when Pudge pushed about 230 pounds, but remained hard as granite. He became a walking legend of Yale football When you looked at Pudge you almost expected to see in the background the mystic figures of John L. Sullivan Pop Anson snapper Garrison Harry Varden Barney Oldfield and other unbelievable's of the bygone sports era Joe Williams once said that he had heard and read so much about Pudge that until he actually met him He was certain the old boy never existed Around 1915 after practice one day Walter Camp then Yale's coach called Pudge to one side and said The trouble with you Heff is that you play guard only one way You are a fine guard, but remember there are at least two ways to play your position. I Began to study things and practice on students related Pudge They soon began to run when they saw me ten days later I told camp I had followed his advice and now I had six different ways to play guard Heffel finger was undoubtedly the first of the running guards. I mean the pullout and lead the interference type He was a terrific blocker When Pudge was 43 or 44 he returned to Yale for several days. Tad Jones was the coach Pudge lined up with the scrubs much against Tad's wishes He was afraid a man of 44 playing against 20 year olds might be hurt That was an historic afternoon When the scrubs got the ball Pudge turned to Jess Spaulding second team halfback and said Jess follow me. I Followed him related Spaulding I also ran 55 yards for a touchdown with at least four tacklers sprawled out on the field Every man Pudge hit was flattened Heffel finger was a bit sore about that scrimmage. You know Grant. He said they said I broke a couple of Cupid blacks ribs I didn't I happened to bump into a man and drove him into black The collision occurred just a week before the Princeton game and two weeks before the Harvard game It marked the last time Heffel finger was allowed on Yale field in a football suit When Pudge was 52 he played in a professional charity game at Columbus, Ohio Bull McMillan famed center college hero and later a fine coach was quarterback Before the game Pudge somehow dislocated his shoulder But twisted it and jerked it until the shoulder snapped back McMillan told me they didn't think Pudge would last five minutes Heffel finger played 54 minutes of that game related McMillan him 53 and me 22 He played one of the best games at guard. I ever saw Shortly before his death at blessing Texas in the spring of 1954 Pudge was in New York for a touchdown club dinner and an award I remember him saying Grant it's fun to look back on a half century of football playing But I'm reconciled to a seat in the stadium now even if it's not on the 50 yard line I know folks say I never outgrew a campus hero complex, but at least they know I never rested on my oars I stood up to them all for three generations That night I toasted Pudge with these lines As we look them over in the big corral as the years march by as they rise and fall Here's to big Pudge my pick and my pal the greatest Roman of them all Right up to the end Pudge Heffel finger carried into life's battle all the enthusiasm of a rookie That closes the book on another chapter from the grantland rice story the tumult and the shouting Until next we meet. This is jimmy powers transcribe saying to you the best of the bestest