The Ashes of Lou Gehrig and Other Baseball Essays (review)

In the first essay in his book, Sean Peter Kirst tells the story of how Lou Gehrig's widow, Eleanor, considered donating her husband's ashes to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mrs.Gehrig thought the Hall of Fame would provide a sanctuary from thieves or fanatics who might disturb the ashes at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. The Hall of Fame hoped to use Gehrig's remains as part of a bigger plan to enclose the ashes of other baseball greats. In the end, however, Gehrig remained where he was. In a postscript Kirst quotes the guardian of the Gehrig estate as saying that Mrs.Gehrig's fears may have been realized, that there was evidence that the vault with the remains of baseball's most tragic hero may have, at some point, been disturbed.

In The Ashes of Lou Gehrig and Other Baseball Essays, a collection of seventy-five columns written for the Syracuse Post-Standard, Kirst connects the stories of upstate New York to the larger story of baseball in a style that is alternately provocative, poignant, and lyrical. "Some of the last great untold stories about the game and its heroes are hidden away in such Minor League towns as Syracuse," Kirst writes in his introduction. In Kirst's columns the stories of Syracuse become a metaphor for what gives baseball so much of its appeal. Not only is baseball, in all its triumphs and tragedies, found in Major League ballparks or on ESPN, but the skeletons of its history are found in towns and cities throughout America—to be revealed by skillful observers like Kirst.

For every Lou Gehrig there is a "Babe" Dahlgren, who once played for the Minor League Syracuse Chiefs. Dahlgren is nothing more than a footnote to baseball history, because he succeeded Gehrig, the "Iron Horse," as the Yankees first baseman. Dahlgren never made a name for himself because, he said, rumors of marijuana use led to his blacklist from baseball. For decades afterward Dahlgren vehemently denied the rumors but died a marked man. Kirst shows that both the greatest names and the footnotes in baseball passed through Syracuse and upstate New York. Ty Cobb played in an exhibition game in Syracuse a day after being attacked and stabbed. According to Cobb he made one of his assailants pay with his life by beating him to death—though that version has been largely discredited. Kirst also takes us to the Niagara Falls hospital bed of Sal "The Barber" Maglie, the once-feared pitcher who spent the last few years of his life in a coma.

Kirst is a first-rate writer, reporter, and storyteller—and all stories lead to Syracuse. Fleet Walker, the first black Major Leaguer who was later exiled from professional baseball because of his skin color, left a Syracuse bar late one night and was met on the street by racial taunts. After a skirmish ensued, one of Walker's assailants was dead and Walker was charged with murder (though later acquitted). Kirst also is not afraid to tell stories that reflect badly on Syracuse. Jackie Robinson said that during his year in the Minor Leagues, it was in Syracuse where he was treated the worst. "This is history," Kirst writes. "For the rest of his life, when Jackie Robinson thought of playing ball in our city, he thought of foul insults and the worst racist bile. It is in his biographies. It is all part of the record. The question now, after 50years, is what do we do about it?"

Of all the stories in The Ashes of Lou Gehrig, none is as sad as "The Runner Who Can't Get Home," which is about fourteen-year-old Lenny Harmon, who stood outside a Minor League ballpark to chase down foul balls. After one ball cleared the ballpark and landed on the street, Lenny tore after it and into the path of a coming car. The accident left...