 What's going on everybody? Welcome back. I hope you had a great New Year's Eve. I hope you're going to have a great 2020. I got another baseball reference deep dive here. This one I did a couple years ago or last offseason for the Talking Yanks podcast. I'm not sure if we actually fully talked about it on that podcast, but I thought it was interesting. I think it's interesting. It's a deep dive into Lou Gehrig streak. This dude, the Iron Horse. If you're not familiar with Lou Gehrig, thanks for clicking the video. Odd click. If you have no idea what we're talking about, appreciate you. So Lou Gehrig, Yankees, great. He held the record for consecutive games played. Cal Ripken Jr. beat him out. In the 90s, I'm not going to go into Cal Ripken's record. I'm going to stay with Lou Gehrig's record. I did a deep dive into it to see how cool it was or how uncool it was or just really like, how does the guy play that many games? It's crazy. So let's do a quick review of Lou Gehrig's career. He went to Columbia University, which is in New York City. He gets picked up by the Yankees at 19. In 1923, he made his debut. He appeared in 13 games for the Yankees that season, mostly as a pinch hitter or defensive replacement. Didn't get many starts, but on September 29th, he played both ends of a double header and game two went 16 innings. So he played 25 innings in one day and the Yankees lost both games. So that had to be pretty miserable. Playing that many innings in one day kind of was Lou Gehrig's favorite thing to do. He didn't see the bigs again until 1924 when he occupied the same role, pinch hitter and defensive replacement, 10 games for the New York Yankees. So fast forward to June of 1925. The Yankees aren't doing that well and the Yankees manager starts Gehrig in place of their regular first baseman, Wally Pip. Wally Pip was the starter for I think six or seven years, every day starter. He was not having a great start to the season. He was batting 244 with no power and in the 22 games leading up to June 2nd, he had a 174 batting average, so not good. He wasn't the only one that got replaced in the lineup though. The manager took out struggling second baseman Aaron Ward and catcher Wally Shang. So two Wally's got taken out of the starting lineup. How come we don't have any, not enough Wally's anymore. I need to get more Wally's going. Is Wally short for something? Let's get back to it. Is Wally short for something? Please let me know. So they both get taken off. The only difference is those two guys, they got their job back rather quickly. Wally Pip never started another game for the New York Yankees. He started every game that season up until June 2nd. He was the starter for six years. He gets sidelined. They said he had a headache. He was also slumping and these never, never starts for the Yankees again because in that game on June 2nd, Garrett goes three for five with a double and a run score. He had hits in his first three at bats. He got a single and he got a double. Then he got a single. Then he grounded out. Then he tried to bunt for a base hit right before him was an inside the park home run before that was a double. Maybe the infield was playing back like, shit, this pitcher's getting rocked and Lou Gehrig thought he was being sneaky and bunting for a base hit and he didn't work. It didn't work out. He got out, as they say. But that started the streak. He played every single day since that day on June 2nd and some of it is really dumb when you look at it. When you go through the game logs on baseball reference, some of it's just straight stupid. Like, look at this stretch from 1926. He played eight games in five days. Double header, game, game, double header, double header, eight games in five days. And if you think that's crazy, well, the next season in 1927, he played nine games in five days. Nine games in five days. Double header, then a double header, then a game, then a double header, then a double header. It's insane. A lot of double headers back then. Or how about 41 innings in two days? The first game of the double header went 18 innings. The second got called after five innings, probably because it got too dark because the first one was basically the double header. You're supposed to play two games and the first game goes 18 innings. Well, shit, there's your two games, but now you have to play a third. So it got too dark. Luke probably would have played the full nine, but they called it after five, and then he played 18 innings the next day. 41 innings in two days. In 1928 is when we first see that the streak really meant something or they were cognizant of the streak, like they were trying to preserve the streak. In 1928, we're only three seasons in, two and a half seasons in. On May 31st, Garrett got the start. He gets one at bat, stays in the field for three batters, then is replaced by Cedric Durst at first base who came in from right field. Guy comes off the bench to go into right field or left field. So that's kind of like, all right, well, why didn't you just sit him and give him a rest? Well, he's played all these days in a row. We don't want to ruin the streak. That's, that's the earliest time when they kind of cater to the streak. There's a lot coming. In 1929, he only came out of one game before the game ended. The Yankees had back to back double headers and Lou played in all four games. The next day on July 31st, he got three at bats. He went over three and was taken out. They said, hey, Lou, why don't you take a breather? It probably, it probably had to be nice. Probably like, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty fucking tired to be honest with him, with the coach been playing a lot. Wish I, you wish you would have sat me 20 days into this thing. So I didn't have to do this stupid streak. It's like when you meet a kid who's got a rat tail in high school, and he's like, I've had it since birth. I can't cut it now. And you're like, well, shit, your parents really fucked you up. Now you can't cut that thing because your parents made that decision for you when you were five years old. That's what the manager did. He played him every day and now Lou was like, the streak is important. You made it important. I didn't plan that part of what I just said. In 1930, he got replaced five or six times. And they're always in blowouts, and they're always late in game. So it is what it is, right? Start the game. If you don't need you anymore, get out of there. It's excusable. No one's going to be like the streak is a farce because of that. That's totally normal. In 1931, he started every game and played every game until it ended, including this dumb ass stretch of 16 games in 12 days with four double headers and three extra in games. During that stretch, he averaged 12 and a half innings of baseball a day for almost two weeks, 16 games in 12 days. In 1932, he comes out of a handful of games early. He plays every inning of some insane stretches again, but also we get another instance of them catering to the streak. In the middle of September, Garak had played 12 games in nine days, starting with three double headers in a row. That's six games in three days. Math. With another double header looming, manager Joe McCarthy started Garak, let him get one at bat, and one inning in the field, and then pulled him. Why not just give him the day off? Well, the streak matters. The streak matters. So I mean, that's another instance where they kind of catered to the streak to let it stay alive. So by this time, it's rather clear. The streak means a lot to Garak and the team and whoever, and they want to keep it intact. On April 23rd, in 1933, a pitch by Washington Senators pitcher Earl Whitehill struck Garak in the head, almost knocked him unconscious, but Garak remained in the game. In June of 1934, in an exhibition game, Dude even played in exhibition games. Seems like a great time to give Garak a rest. If I'm being honest, he doesn't have to play in those. The streak doesn't get hurt. Just an exhibition game. But no, he plays in the exhibition game, and he's hit with a pitch right above the right eye, knocked unconscious. According to reports, he's out for at least five minutes. He left the game, but he's in the starting lineup the next day. Pretty, pretty crazy. In 1934, we have three instances where they catered to the streak instead of giving Garak the day off. On July 13th, he suffered from back pains, lumbago or something. They say it might have been the start of the disease, which eventually takes his life, but he's got severe back pains. So on the July 13th, he gets one at bat and one inning in the field before they take him out and they say, hey, go ease up, go put some ice on there, maybe some heat, maybe some hot ice, the best of both worlds. The next day, they moved him up to lead off. He gets one at bat, he hits a single. How about that, Lou? And then he's pinch run for it. Just to keep the streak intact, even though this dude probably was hurting rather bad. Also in 1934, the second to last game of the season was the back end of a double header. And Garak got one played appearance, walked and then was pinch run for. And again, they were like, dude, we probably don't need you to play. Just take the day. Ah, but the streak, okay, go in there. So those instances, they weren't that rare in the later years of his career. He would get the start, he'd get an at bat, he'd get three outs in the field, maybe two at bats, whatever. And then he'd come out and get his rest. But sometimes he didn't even get an at bat. Sometimes he stood in the field for one out, then got replaced by defensive replacement and left the game and went and got his day of rest consecutive game streak fully intact because they said now starting at first base, Lou Gehrig. And he ran out there and they clapped for him. And then the pitcher threw one pitch. And then it was a ground ball and he caught the ball. And then they said, okay, go hit the showers and probably rest because I haven't rested in 10 years. There's also a crazy instance where the manager of the Yankees called for a rainout just because Lou Gehrig was so damn sick, not because, hey, we need Gehrig to win this game. I'm sure he helped them a ton, but because the streak, the streak, the streak. So according to the book Baseball Codes by Jason Turbo, there's a section in there that talks about when manager Ed Barrow called for a rainout on a day in which there was no rain simply because Lou Gehrig and his record streak of consecutive games were still at home in bed with the flu. Say Ed, a reporter asked Barrow the next day, you really didn't think it was going to rain, did you? Damn it, of course I did, Barrow snapped. Gehrig will be able to play today. So I mean, the streak, the streak, the streak, got to keep the streak intact. Eventually the streak ends when Gehrig is tired and weakened by his illness, which eventually takes his life really, really short. That, that instance he took, according to all the reports, he took himself out of the lineup and he never took the field again. It's not like, you know, he hung around and was a part-time player in a pinch hit or like, no, dude was really sick and really hurting. So his consecutive games started or played streak ends and then that's all. There's no lingering, like I'm going to take a day, screw the streak. I don't know what my conclusion is of this. I just think it's interesting to deep dive. Like clearly the dude was a beast. He played through a million double headers in a row and that's impressive. But also clearly they catered to the streak and it's kind of like, dude, we know this isn't that important. And I think the saddest, sad is not the right word. I think the, the, the one thing that kind of sucks for Gehrig is that he's known, he is overshadowed by his own streak and by Babe Ruth. And if you take those two talking points away, all you have is how fucking good he was at baseball. Like really, really good. Go look at the numbers. They're insane. So that's a little deep dive into Gehrig's streak. I didn't look in the Ripkins. If you're bored at home and you want to go through baseball reference and just go to his game log and then sort the at bats and see if there's anywhere, you know, they did. There is the rumor when the lights went off and he punched Kevin Costner in the face. Who knows? Maybe that'll be another video or maybe it won't. But I do think and not to discredit Ripken because every any streak is crazy. There's no way Ripken had to play fucking 20 double headers a season, maybe 10 double headers a season and travel by train. I think Gehrig's streak is much harder to do. Just like logistically sleeping on trains. But then you have flights and you have all this other stuff. I don't know. Who knows? Some of you probably have a lot of opinions on it. Leave them below. Thanks for watching.