Lou Gehrig Elected to the Hall of Fame by Special Vote

On December 7, 1939, the Baseball Writers' Association of America held a special election at the winter meetings in Cincinnati and voted unanimously to induct Lou Gehrig into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The writers waived the standard requirement that a player be retired for at least one year, making Gehrig the first player to receive such an exemption.

Gehrig's final game had been played just 221 days earlier. On May 2, 1939, after 2,130 consecutive games, the Iron Horse removed himself from the Yankees lineup. He was 36 years old and had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative disease that would eventually bear his name in the public imagination. His famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, in which he called himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," had already entered the national consciousness.

The career the writers honored was extraordinary. Gehrig hit .340 over 17 seasons, all with the Yankees. He drove in 100 or more runs in 13 consecutive years, a record that still stands. He won the Triple Crown in 1934 and was named the American League MVP twice. His 184 RBIs in 1931 remain the American League single-season record.

Gehrig had spent his entire career in the shadow of Babe Ruth, but the statistics told a story of sustained dominance that few players in any era have matched. His consecutive games record stood for 56 years until Cal Ripken Jr. broke it in 1995.

The Hall of Fame has held only two such special elections. The second came in 1973, when Roberto Clemente was inducted following his death in a plane crash on December 31, 1972.

Gehrig died on June 2, 1941, less than two years after the vote in Cincinnati.