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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Lou Gehrig Deserves Better, October 8, 2005
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.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Highly informative, poorly written, May 22, 2000
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.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A good book about Lou worth reading, June 15, 2000
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.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A good book about Lou worth reading, June 15, 2000
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.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
The Soul Of The Iron Horse, February 2, 2005
In "Iron Horse", Ray Robinson gives the reader an introduction to the Lou Gehrig persona. More than a list of records and triumphs of the baseball star, we meet the human being behind the records. I always had the impression that Gehrig was a good man, whereas Babe Ruth was only a good baseball player. This book confirms that impression.
Growing up the son of German immigrants, Gehrig had the disadvantage of being something of an outsider in his own world. Baseball was just one avenue he traveled in his efforts to advance himself. Various jobs and Columbia University were other options pursued by Lou. His parents discouraged him from playing a game which they did not understand. When Lou had to choose between Columbia University and baseball, his parents urged the University, while a professor recommended baseball. Going to work every day was not extraordinary for Lou. That was how his parents raised him.
In his chosen trade, Lou achieved excellence and attention wherever he played. Lou lived the thrill of playing baseball, and as a Yankee to boot! Lou always considered himself the luckiest man alive, even as he lived in the shadow of two giants, Babe Ruth at the start of his career, and Joe DiMaggio toward the end. Through it all, Lou considered himself a lucky man.
Robinson leads the reader through a character study of his boyhood hero. We see Lou's relationships with his loving parents who could never understand the stage on which he strode. His wife, who gave him joy while suffering his mother's resentment, would be his solace in his illness. His relationships with his team mates, particularly Babe Ruth, get much attention. In this book we see Gehrig as a man not only driven by passions and wants, but guided by a sense of right and wrong. He was the moral compass of the Yankees. This trait prevented him from ever being the close friend of Ruth with whom he is so commonly associated in the public mind.
Driven, perhaps, by contemporary interests, Lou's earnings are frequently reported. We are brought to understand that even a star of Gehrig's luminance earned a large salary, but still needed to work when he retired. Lou found post baseball employment in a department of the city in which he grew up, achieved stardom and gradually deteriorated and died.
The illness of the only patient to give his name to a disease forms much of the latter sections of the book. Robinson tries to give an accurate report of how the disease affected Lou without over exaggerating its effects. We travel with Lou throughout his slump, ending of the streak and his gradual deterioration. At the end we have seen all 37 years of his remarkable and admirable life.
Although the reader is introduced to the persona of Lou Gehrig, there is plenty of baseball too. This is an excellent book for any baseball fan with a desire to into the soul of one of baseball's most noble knights.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A True Gem, August 16, 2003
"Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time" by Ray Robinson is a true gem, and a masterfully written book that should be forever recognized in the annals on baseball research. This book is a tribute and biography of one of baseball's greatest, and least talked about star - Lou Gehrig. While a Yankee, Gehrig was over-shawdowed by the flamboyant Babe Ruth for the most part, and any accomplishment Gehrig took part in, Babe Ruth was still more recognized.
Gehrig was a quiet, peaceful man who truly cared about fans. He was very interested in the game and loved playing baseball and really examined the mechanics of it. Hopefully Gehrig will be more memorialized not only in the Hall of Fame, but in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere. His courage triumphed his disease.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A RARE TREAT, September 1, 1998
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.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The Luckiest Yankee, February 28, 2002
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.
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The backbone of the '27 Yankees, April 8, 2000
If you're a Lou Gehrig fan than this is the book that you need to add to your collection. The author, Ray Robinson, captured the man perfectly, from his humble beginnings to his tearful farewell. If you're a fan of the Yankees or just a fan a baseball and wish the game was really still played for "the love of the game" then this is the book for you.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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