Lou Gehrig's Consecutive Games Streak Ends at 2,130

June 1, 1925. Pee-Wee Wanninger was at shortstop for the Yankees. He'd been at shortstop for three weeks -- the new guy, installed to replace Everett Scott, whose 1,307 consecutive games had just ended when manager Miller Huggins benched him.

In the eighth inning, Huggins sent Lou Gehrig to the plate to pinch-hit for Wanninger.

One plate appearance. It counted. The Iron Horse was in the game.

The baseball gods, who have a talent for arranging these things, had just delivered one of their best bits: the same man who ended the consecutive games record would now be replaced, plate appearance by plate appearance, by the man about to set the next one. Gehrig batted for Wanninger, who had replaced Scott, who would have replaced someone before him. A chain of iron men, each one outlasting the last.

The next day, Wally Pipp -- the Yankees' regular first baseman -- asked out of the lineup with a headache. Huggins put the 21-year-old Gehrig in at first base.

Gehrig played well. He kept playing. Pipp spent the rest of the 1925 season watching and was traded to Cincinnati that winter. The Iron Horse didn't give back the position.

Not once. Not for 14 years.

The Record That Wasn't Supposed to Be Beatable

August 17, 1933 was game 1,308 -- one past the 1,307 that had made Everett Scott famous. The game was at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis against the Browns. American League President William Harridge came to the game. He brought a commemorative trophy from The Sporting News.

The ceremony happened before the first pitch. The trophy was presented. The crowd applauded. Then they played baseball, and the Yankees lost 7-6 in ten innings.

Gehrig took the loss, took the trophy, and came back the next day.

That was always the thing about the streak -- not the milestone games, not the ceremonies, just the coming back. He played through broken fingers -- over the course of the streak, X-rays eventually revealed 17 fractures in his hands that he'd never once stopped playing through. He played through a severe lumbago attack in 1934 that required trainers to help him off the field. The next day, to preserve the streak while saving his back, he was listed at shortstop, batted leadoff, singled, and was immediately replaced by a pinch runner.

He won two MVPs during those years, a Triple Crown in 1934, and six World Series. He hit .340 for his career. He drove in 1,995 runs. He wasn't just showing up -- he was the best first baseman in the league for almost all of it.

May 2, 1939

The decline came in the 1939 season. The story of what caused it -- and what came next -- belongs to its own article. What belongs here is the ending.

On the morning of May 2, 1939, in Detroit, Gehrig rode an elevator at the Book-Cadillac Hotel up to Joe McCarthy's floor. He knocked. He went in. He said: "I'm benching myself, Joe. For the good of the team."

McCarthy asked if he was serious.

He was.

(Downstairs, in the Book-Cadillac lobby, Wally Pipp was there on a business trip. The man whose headache had started the whole thing -- 14 years earlier, almost to the month -- was in the same building when it ended. Baseball has always been better at irony than the people who write about it.)

McCarthy asked Gehrig to carry the lineup card to the umpires himself, as team captain. That afternoon at Briggs Stadium, Gehrig walked out to home plate with a card that had Babe Dahlgren's name at first base. His own name wasn't on it -- the first time in 2,130 games.

Tiger broadcaster Ty Tyson told the crowd what had happened. Eleven thousand, three hundred and seventy-nine people -- in an opposing park, rooting for the other team -- stood up and applauded for two minutes. Gehrig tipped his cap from the dugout with tears running down his face.

The Yankees won 22-2. Dahlgren hit a home run and a double. Late in the game, Dahlgren came to Gehrig on the bench and tried to talk him into stepping onto the field for one play -- just to keep the streak technically alive for one more day. Gehrig shook his head.

The streak had started with a pinch-hit in the eighth inning. It ended with a quiet no in a visiting dugout in Michigan.

What Came Next

The record stood for 56 years.

On September 6, 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles stepped into the batter's box in his 2,131st consecutive game. The game was at Camden Yards against the California Angels, and it stopped mid-inning. The crowd gave Ripken a standing ovation for 22 minutes -- the network didn't go to commercial once. He jogged a lap around the warning track shaking hands with everyone he could reach. He eventually ended his streak at 2,632 games on September 20, 1998.

Ripken was great. He was consistently, durably great, over a long time. But when he broke the record, what everyone talked about was Gehrig -- what it meant that someone finally did it, how long the record had sat, the kind of player it described.

McCarthy summed it up at Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day two months after the streak ended, trying to hold himself together: "My God, man, you were never that." Never a hindrance. Not once.

Not for a single game of 2,130.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long was Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak?

Lou Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games for the New York Yankees, from June 1, 1925 through April 30, 1939 -- a span of nearly 14 years. It was the longest consecutive games streak in major league history until Cal Ripken Jr. broke it in 1995.

Why did Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak end?

Gehrig ended the streak himself on May 2, 1939. He walked into manager Joe McCarthy's room at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit and said "I'm benching myself, Joe. For the good of the team." He was struggling with .143 BA and no home runs through eight games, the early stages of ALS -- though the diagnosis wouldn't come until six weeks later. He wasn't pushed out. He walked out.

Who broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games record?

Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles broke the record on September 6, 1995, playing his 2,131st consecutive game at Camden Yards against the California Angels. The crowd gave Ripken a 22-minute standing ovation. He eventually extended his streak to 2,632 before ending it voluntarily on September 20, 1998.

How did Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak start?

The streak started on June 1, 1925, when Gehrig pinch-hit for Yankees shortstop Pee-Wee Wanninger. The irony: Wanninger had just replaced Everett Scott, ending Scott's 1,307-game record. Gehrig batted for the man who'd ended the record he was about to own. The next day, Wally Pipp asked out with a headache, Gehrig started at first base, and never gave the spot back.

When did Gehrig break Everett Scott's consecutive games record?

Gehrig surpassed Scott's mark of 1,307 games on August 17, 1933, in a game against the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. AL President William Harridge presented him a commemorative trophy before the game. The Yankees lost 7-6 in ten innings. The streak had 822 games left to run.