At his retirement Gehrig was (and still is) statistically the greatest first basemen ever and his numbers have held up well, even through the steroid era. Lou's 23 grand slams are still the most all time for any player and he possesses the top totals among first basemen for RBIs, consecutive 120+ RBI seasons, OBP, walks, slugging percentage, and extra base hits. Gehrig also holds a number of single season records for a first basemen including most RBIs (184), runs scored (167), extra base hits (117), total bases (447), and highest slugging percentage (.765, higher than McGwire in his 70 home run season). His entire career was incredibly proficient but at his heights, Gehrig was unrivaled by all but a few in history.
Lou was awarded the MVP award twice (1927, 1936) but unbelievably neither of those season's was inarguably his best. In 1934 — a season in which he lost out in the MVP race to Mickey Cochrane in one of the most bizarre voting outcomes in baseball awards history — Gehrig captured the Triple Crown with one of the most epic seasons a hitter has ever produced. The year was Babe Ruth's last with the Yankees as the 39-year-old slugger would be cast off to the Boston Braves for the 1935 season, his last in the show. Even with Ruth's enormous presence still felt around the clubhouse, the Yankees were now clearly Gehrig's team. And he seized the opportunity to step out of Ruth's gargantuan shadow with dynamic vigor.
That season, Gehrig clubbed a career high 49 home runs (a total he would match twice), 165 RBIs and posted a stellar .363 batting average. And while these stats alone gave him the Triple Crown, Gehrig also led the league in slugging (.706), OBP (.465), OPS (1.172), OPS+ (208), and total bases (409). Lou was hands down the best player in baseball but, in a rare occurrence for the time, it was the Tigers who won the pennant that season, possibly the reason Cochrane and his .320 batting average, two home runs, and 76 RBIs (a down season by Cochrane's lofty standards) won the MVP.
In the postseason Gehrig was no less dominating, helping to establish the Yankee legacy for October greatness. In 34 World Series games, Gehrig batted .361/.477/1.208 with 10 home runs, 35 RBIs, and 30 runs scored. Lou played in seven World Series contests with the great Yankees teams of the of the late 20s and 30s, winning six of those matchups while losing only his first in 1926 to the Cardinals, while still posting very good numbers, batting .348/.464/.899. He was held homerless but still managed to rake in 35 RBIs. Every time a modern Yankee establishes his legacy with postseason greatness (i.e. Mantle, Jackson, Jeter) he is following in the mold created by the man known as the Iron Horse.
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