Gehrig Inducted into College Baseball Hall of Fame
7/4/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
LUBBOCK, TEXAS ? Columbia Athletics Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig was one of four Veterans Class candidates inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame on July 3. Gehrig, Jack Barry of Holy Cross, Christy Mathewson of Bucknell and Joe Sewell of Alabama comprised the inaugural Veterans Class of pre-1947 college baseball stars.
Three members of the Veterans Class are also National Baseball Hall of Fame members (Gehrig, Mathewson, Sewell).
These collegiate legends were officially enshrined during a two-day celebration of college
baseball, as the ?The Past Meets Present.' The Hall of Fame showcase included the induction of the Veterans Class, the Brooke Wallace National Player of the Year Award banquet, the 2007 Hall of Fame ceremony, and the annual "4th on Broadway Festival."
Gehrig starred in football and
baseball at Columbia, starting at fullback and defensive tackle on the
gridiron. On the baseball diamond, he soon began to attract attention
for his prodigious home runs; the two most talked about were an
opposite-field shot into a second-story window of the Journalism School
and another that landed across College Walk, then a through city street.
Lou
Gehrig, or "Columbia Lou" as he would come to be known, hit .444 with eight
home runs in 19 games as a sophomore on Morningside Heights before
leaving to sign with the Yankees for a $1500 bonus. He still holds the
Columbia pitching record for strikeouts in a game with 17.
Gehrig was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in a special election and his number was retired, the first professional athlete ever to receive that honor. In January 1940, he became a member of the Parole Board, only to relinquish the job in the spring of 1941 when his illness intensified. He died in his sleep on June 2, 1941, 17 days short of his 38th birthday.
