LIFE is never a straight line. Robert Tierney was a 15-year-old kid playing baseball in a park one June day in 1939 in Rochester, Minn., when out of nowhere came Lou Gehrig.
“He was visiting the Mayo Clinic and was looking for a place to work out,” Tierney, now 85, says in a strong voice. He remembers that day as if it were yesterday.
“As far as we know, I’m the oldest guy alive who has ever played catch with Lou Gehrig,” Tierney says from his home in California. “It was great at the time, I didn’t know all this stuff was going to happen.”
No one, not even the Great Gehrig, knew what was ahead as he suffered from amyotrophic-lateral sclerosis, which would soon become known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
This was a much different time. Back then, unless you went to a major league game, you only saw your heroes in the newsreels or in the newspaper. Gehrig was a big man, but for all his ability, Tierney could see stunning cracks in the armor because of ALS. The Hall of Famer had played his last game. He appeared in just eight games that season, batting .143. The man who had played in 2,130 consecutive games was a shell of his former superstar self because of the ravages of ALS.
“He wasn’t as frisky as you would expect a major league baseball player to be,” Tierney explains, “but he was hoping to be able to play baseball again. He was really struggling with that disease.”
Gehrig gave Robert some sound baseball advice. Tierney was a backup second baseman. He could not move well because of a leg injury. “I played catch with him a few times and I was real gimpy,” Tierney recalls.
Gehrig suggested he become a pitcher. Tierney did just that.
“I had a lot of fun the next several years pitching, pitched down in Louisiana, pitched on some barnstorming teams,” Tierney says. “He gave me some great advice. He talked baseball with all the kids.”
Tierney met Gehrig “six or seven times” during his stay in Rochester, at the park or different events around town, and got Gehrig to sign a baseball.
“The guy who played Lou Gehrig in the movie did a dynamite job,” Tierney says of Gary Cooper, “but he wasn’t Lou Gehrig, I can tell you that. Lou Gehrig was just one great guy. He was so sincere. There could never be another one like Lou Gehrig. He had a great way with kids. He’d play first in our games, but wouldn’t hit, he didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
On July Fourth that season, the Yankees honored Gehrig at Yankee Stadium. That is where Gehrig made his famous farewell speech, saying, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Life would continue for both men, but never in a straight line. Gehrig died less than two years later on June 2, 1941, 16 years to the day he replaced Wally Pipp at first base.
Eventually, Tierney married. He and his wife Geraldine adopted two boys and they had a wonderful life, married more than 40 years. “We both got married a little late,” Tierney explains. He worked for an airline. She was a deputy city clerk and worked for IBM. In 1999, Geraldine passed away.
She suffered from ALS and died from complications of the deadly disease. Life is never a straight line.
“It’s a terrible disease,” says Tierney, who is actively involved with the San Diego chapter of the ALS Association. “It sneaks up on you. Geraldine was a great mother, really a jewel. She tried to keep the disease from me for several years. One day, she was down in the garden and couldn’t get up. She had to wait for a neighbor to come home to help. I found out about that later.”
MLB will raise awareness on July Fourth. It’s been 70 years since Tierney first saw Gehrig in that park. After all these years, there still is no cure for ALS.
Robert Tierney always will have his memories of Gehrig and that autographed baseball. Gehrig’s birthday was June 19. Recently, at the assisted living home where Tierney lives, it was movie night. They played “Pride of the Yankees.”
“In the movie, when the kid comes out of the crowd and says, ‘Don’t you remember me,’ that kind of reminded me of myself,” Tierney says.
His story is no movie, though, and his memories of Lou Gehrig on this Fourth of July will come straight from the heart.
The Luckiest Man
On July Fourth, the Yankees and each home team will host an on-field reading of Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech during the seventh-inning stretch. All players will wear a “4uALS” patch on their chest and MLB will promote the effort in a variety of ways. In addition, MLB.com will conduct an online auction to raise funds for the cause, and MLB will continue to work with four key organizations to identify additional opportunities to raise funds and awareness.