USPS Lou Gehrig Commemorative Stamps

USPS on 10 June 1989 issued a  commemorative stamp of American baseball great  Lou Gehrig. It had a face value of 25 cents. This multicolored, adhesive stamp was printed by American Bank Note Co using the photogravure method. The postmark cancellation originated from Cooperstown, New York. The cachet on this envelope depicted Lou Gehrig with his wife Eleanor.

On a second occasion, USPS on 6 July 2000 issued a Lou Gehrig commemorative stamp with a face value of 33 cents. Ashton-Potter (USA) Ltd printed 11,250,000 copies, using a lithograph method with a serpentine die cut 11.25. This multicoloured stamp was amongst a series featuring 20 of the greatest US baseball players in the past 100 years. Postmark cancellation originated from Atlanta, Georgia.

Gehrig was known as the 'Iron Horse' and played 17 years (1923–1939) with the New York Yankees in an incredible 2,130 consecutive games, leaving a mark on the game and its fans that has yet to be broken.

Despite playing in the shadow of teammate Babe Ruth for two-thirds of his career, Gehrig was one of the highest run producers in baseball history; he had 509 RBIs during a three-season stretch (1930–32). Only two other players, Jimmie Foxx with 507 and Hank Greenberg with 503, have surpassed 500 RBIs in any three seasons; their totals were not consecutive. (Babe Ruth had 498.)[99] Playing 14 complete seasons, Gehrig had 13 consecutive seasons with 100 or more RBIs (a major-league record shared with Foxx and tied in 2010 by Alex Rodriguez).

 Gehrig had six seasons where he batted .350 or better (with a high of .379 in 1930), plus a seventh season at .349. Gehrig led the American League in runs scored four times, home runs three times, and RBIs five times. His 185 RBIs in 1931 remain the American League record as of 2024 and rank second all-time to Hack Wilson's 191 in 1930. On the single-season RBI list, Gehrig ranks second, fifth (175), and sixth (174), with four additional seasons of over 150 RBIs.

He also holds the baseball record for most seasons with 400 total bases or more, accomplishing this feat five times in his career. He batted fourth in the lineup behind Ruth, making intentionally walking Ruth counterproductive for opposing pitchers.

Lefty Grove, one of the American League's best pitchers during Gehrig's playing days who often threw the ball at batters, refrained from doing so to Gehrig. "You can never tell what that big fellow will do if you get him mad at you," Grove explained.

Unlike Ruth, Gehrig had the physique of a power hitter. Ruth usually hit home runs as high fly balls, while Gehrig's were line drives. During the 10 seasons (1925–1934) in which Gehrig and Ruth were teammates and next to each other in the batting order and played a majority of the games, Gehrig had more home runs than Ruth only once, in 1934 (Ruth's last year with the Yankees, as a 39-year-old), when he hit 49 to Ruth's 22 (Ruth played 125 games that year, and a handful in 1935 before retiring). They tied at 46 in 1931. Ruth had 424 home runs compared to Gehrig's 347; however, Gehrig outpaced Ruth in RBIs, 1,436 to 1,316. Gehrig had a .343 batting average, compared to .338 for Ruth, during this period.

Gehrig (1903 - 1941) played for the New York Yankees until his career was cut short by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease".