Lou Gehrig had a career…
- .340 batting average
- .632 slugging average
- .447 on base average
He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 RBIs and set several major league records during his career, including…
- Most career grand slams (23), a record since broken by Alex Rodriguez.
- Most consecutive games played (2,130), a record that stood for 56 years until surpassed by Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995.
Gehrig's streak ended on May 2, 1939. His play was being hampered by the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an incurable disorder sometimes referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The disease forced him to retire at age 36 and was the cause of his death two years later.
The pathos of his farewell from baseball was capped off by his iconic 1939 "Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech at Yankee Stadium.
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball, an Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1994)
