THE HOME RUN THAT WAS HIT THREE TIMES
"I don't recall the exact date, but I'll never forget the incident. It occurred in New York's Yankee Stadium more than 15 years ago.
The quiet, mild-mannered, immortal Lou Gehrig stepped into the batter's box and promptly larruped the first pitch down the right field foul line into the stands for an apparent home run. He was already nearing second when the plate umpire called him back, ruling the ball had been foul by inches.
Lou accepted the decision and ambled back to the plate for another try. The crowd, however, let the umpire know what it thought with some especially vigorous booing.
Gehrig then smashed another drive on precisely the same line, yet even further up into the right field stands. The crowd leaped to its feet and cheered the Yankees' great first baseman as he again started to circle the bases. But again the plate umpire ruled it a foul- by inches.
The patient Lou finally lost his temper and proceeded to 'beef' vehemently to the arbiter. Unable to get him to change his decision, Gehrig angrily took his stance once more in the batter's box and belted the next pitch for a sizzling line-drive home run which carried well over 400 feet.
The fans in that particular vicinity of the right-center field bleachers ducked out of the way of the murderously driven ball as it landed among them like a shot. It would have been foolhardy for any fan to have tried to spear it. If the ball had had as much lift as it had straight away power, it would have gone out of the Yankee Stadium entirely.
There was no question about this being a home run. It was one the hardest, most vicious homers ever hit anywhere, even though its abrupt collision with the right-center field bleacher seats prevented it from becoming one of the longest home runs in the history of baseball.
Lou Gehrig, still standing in the batter's box, turned to the plate umpire and pointed out toward the distant spot where the ball had scorched out of view and asked the umpire if he thought this last drive was a questionable home run, too.
The umpire smiled and gave Lou a friendly go-ahead slap on the shoulder. This caused the flushed Gehrig to snap back to his usual good-natured self and brought a sheepish grin to his face.
This time there were tumultuous cheers as Lou Gehrig triumphantly completed his circling of the bases- on a home run he had hit three times."
-Jack Nugent (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
GEHRIG'S ANALYSIS OF SLUMPS
"Hitters never accept slumps as a part of their business, not recognizing that if they never had a slump, they would hit .500 at least. Nor do they ever credit the enemy pitchers for getting them down. They blame their slumps on themselves.
'You have to,' Lou Gehrig once explained. 'What are you going to do- admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they have always been- or just as bad. So, if you are not hitting, the fault is yours. Having admitted that, what do you do? You ask everybody on the ball club: 'What am I doing up there that I shouldn't do?'
'You'd be surprised at the answers. One fellow tells you this ... another tells you that ... somebody else tells you something else. You've changed your stance. Your feet are too close together ... or too far apart. You're swinging too soon ... or too late. You take all the advice you hear ... and what happens? You're lucky you don't get hit in the head. Then, one day, you start to hit and you know that all the time it was your fault and the pitchers had nothing to do with it.'"
-Frank Graham in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
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