Posted By:
John SpencerThe story I heard goes something like this: While when appearing in public together, Ruth and Gehrig always appeared to be best of friends, but the reality was somewhat different. Gehrig apparently didn't approve of Ruth's flamboyant life style while Ruth often would comment that Gehrig was a "mama's boy". Undoubtedly, professional jealousy would have featured somewhere in here. The situation reached such a point they were not speaking to each other. It is only my conjecture but I suspect that the 4 different poses of Ruth in the '33 Goudey set compared to the same pose on 2 cards for him didn't please Gehrig too much, so when he played such a prominent role in the '34 Goudey set he might have been able to influence Goudey to leave Ruth out altogether or he wouldn't participate at all. Since Ruth's star was fading and Gehrig was still playing terrific ball, I can see why Goudey might have been influenced. Just a story but I like it.