Lukas: Why did Lou Gehrig wear a cartoon pin in 1938?
From Paul Lukas at Uni-Watch on February 13, 2018, with mention of SABR members Matt Dahlgren, Todd Radom, and Tara Krieger:
A fascinating little MLB mystery unfolded yesterday on Twitter. It began when Matt Dahlgren (author of the baseball memoir Rumor in Town) posted the Lou Gehrig photo shown above. We can tell that the photo is from 1938 because Gehrig’s left sleeve has the World’s Fair sleeve patch that all three New York-based MLB teams wore that season. But what is that little pin on the patch?
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Dahlgren, who said he first spotted the photo on eBay, tweeted the photo at uniform designer/historian Todd Radom, who said he’d never seen Gehrig wearing the pin and had no idea what it was. I had no idea either.
Fortunately, one of my Twitter followers, Greg Kasprzak, recognized the pin — it’s Eugene the Jeep.
I’ve always loved the Jeep character and really should have recognized it when I saw the Gehrig photo. The bigger question, of course, is why Gehrig would be wearing a Jeep pin in the first place.
Read the full article here: https://uni-watch.com/2018/02/13/history-mystery-why-did-the-iron-horse-wear-a-metal-pin/
Originally published: February 13, 2018. Last Updated: February 13, 2018.