Customer Reviews

Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time

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Even though I am a Cubs fan, my favorite baseball player is Lou Gehrig. This book has a lot of baseball information that My Luke and I did not have.

If you want to read about Gehrigs baseball career this is a great book to read. I suggest if you really want to read about Gehrig get a copy of My Luke and I By Elenor Gehrig even if it is out of print.

Ray Robinson gives us a different look at Lou's life. The often strained relation with fellow teammate Babe Ruth. The softness in Lou's heart that touches many as well as the outstanding performances Lou achieved in his brillant baseball career that were often over shadowed by Ruth. A definate must read for Yankees fans, baseball fans and anyone one interested in a remarkable man.

Many traps are set for the baseball biographer. S/he can fall into biased hero-worship; lapse into the recitation of dusty, Biblical lists: "And in 1930 he hit .379, which begat an average of .341 the following year, and verily an average of .349 in the year 1932, and ..."; bombard us with information of questionable value; bore us.

Ray Robinson falls into every one of those traps. There are pages and pages of dry as dust technical stuff which reads poorly. If a biographer wishes to get into the details of how a player learns to hit to the opposite field or how he adjusts his grip or how he deals with left-handed sinkerball pitchers going to the outside of the plate, it has to be presented well. Present it as a measure of personal growth, wrap it up in interesting anecdotes, surround it with spicy quotes, offer it as a baseball primer or an insider's tip. What we get in "Iron Horse" are pages of dull, drab detail.

The writing does not help. Right from the start, we know we're not in good hands with a meaningless, clichéd subtitle like "Lou Gehrig in His Time". Of course he's in his time. Who else's time is he going to be in? Bad word choices drop like clumsy anvils: we are told that Lou "experienced" a five-for-five game.

There is also a fan's bias pervading the book that gets tiresome. Yes, the author nails his colors to the mast as a Gehrig devotee from the start, but after a while his determination to interpret everything Lou ever did in the best possible light makes one suspicious. If Gehrig were allowed to have a few human flaws, instead of the author defensively explaining away anything conceivable as a lapse, he - and the book - would be more accessible.

I'm not dwelling on the positives of this book, because the negatives are a real concern for anyone embarking upon it. In the author's defense: in all honesty, Lou Gehrig is not the most scintillating subject. He does not attract anecdotes and legends the way the Babe did. Even his nickname speaks of solidity and dependibility rather than flash or style. Having a detailed, well-researched biography of the man is useful, and this book certainly fits that description. As a reference book to have in one's library it is useful and information. As a book to sit down and read, though, it is turgid and often boring.

Although the recent Jonathan Eig biography has pretty much surpassed Robinson's book in terms of research and accuracy, for the better part of the past two decades, Robinson's biography was the best Gehrig book on the market. It tells a nice little story about both the remarkable ballplayer and man; it's a quick and easy read without any of the corny fabricated dialogue or "puffing" previous treatments had given the subject -- both Frank Graham's and, worse, Paul Gallico's versions -- and you come away with a good sense of who Lou Gehrig was, warts and all. Where Robinson's bio will always have the upper hand over Eig's, though, is through personal experiences. Robinson opens the book with his own story of how he met the Iron Horse as a boy -- he was also in the bleachers the day of Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech -- and, in terms of sources, Robinson had time on his side. The book was initially published in 1990, when a handful of Gehrig's closest acquaintances from the seminal events in his life were still alive -- and thus could be interviewed and share personal anecdotes (whereas Eig had to rely on secondhand information, old newspaper accounts, and the few tangential relations that were left). Which is to say, it's still very much worth a read, definitely recommended.

This informative biography suffers by comparison to the graceful and powerful writing in Frank Graham's "Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero." Robinson's book has more facts and reveals more about Gehrig's faults and problems as well as strengths, but it's like reading an encyclopedia: you may (probably will) wind up caring about Gehrig, but you'll have to fight your way past the dry, unemotional prose to do so. Worth your time if you want to learn more about Gehrig's life and career; skip it if you're looking for an impact similar to the movie ("Pride of the Yankees").

Like most of his other titles, Robinson's biography of Lou Gehrig is a book best not judged by its cover. At first blush and on a brief perusal, it looks like a handsome, serious, thoughtful biography. But upon reading it is mostly hackneyed filler and exhibits no true scholarship. Instead of really telling you anything of importance about Gehrig, you get colorless run-downs of his seasons and a hodge-podge of information primarily culled from other books. That's not entirely bad and not without some merit, for the definitive Gehrig book has yet to be written and this will have to do for now, but it does his subject a disservice. There is also virtually no discussion of the surrounding historical and social context indicated by the title. Gehrig deserved better. Kids may enjoy this, but if you are looking for something substantial, pass.

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.

Iron Horse is beautiful tribute to one of the best loved Yankees. Robinson tells the story of Lou Gehrig a simple man who due to circumstances that are beyond his control has an incurable disease.

He covers Gehrig's early years from the time he was born. We see his greatness as if we are there ourselves. And we learn the painful truth that sometimes life is cruel to even the young people around us. Lou set examples in leadership and of course in courage and anyone who reads this I hope will feel the same.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone! I LOVE Lou Gehrig after reading this book and wish there were still athletes like him today. He's a true American Hero. If you have kids in sports, I would have them read this book.

Ty Wilde
Author of "Everything I Touch Turns to Sold"

This is a very readable and personal biography of baseball's Iron Horse. As many know, slugger Lou Gherig (1903-1941) was one of baseball's all-time greats, with 493 homers (23 grand slams), a lifetime batting average of .340, plus a .447 On-base-average and .632 Slugging percentage. Gherig's record 2,130 straight games played (finally eclipsed by Cal Ripken in 1995) would have continued if not for the onset of the fatal disease that now bears his name. In author Ray Robinson's skillful hands we come to know Gherig, his nice-guy shyness, devotion to his mother (and later, wife Eleanor), and quiet, classy demeanor. We also get a feel for his upbringing, his days at Columbia University, and more importantly, big league baseball in the 1920-1930's. The author interviewed many ex-teammates like Lefty Gomez, Waite Hoyt, Phil Rizzuto, Bill Dickey, Tommy Henrich, etc., and their words add immensely to the narrative. Robinson notes how Gherig's accomplishments were often overshadowed by Babe Ruth and others, but given Lou's quite persona perhaps it didn't bother him. The author also shows the too-soon decline, as the tragic disease took its toll on this immensely decent, incredibly-strong man, and indirectly his family - his parents had no other surviving children, and his widow never remarried while dedicating her remaining four decades to raising funds for research.

At less than 300 paperback pages, this book may not be as detailed as other Gehrig biographies. Still, it is readable, well-researched, very personal, and highly moving.