In 1930 in Akron, Ohio, the young man Jimmy Grow worked on the ground crew for the Goodyear Rubber Company's blimp. His job was to grab hold of the mooring ropes and help tug the thing to the hangar. By the late '30s in Teterboro, N.J., Grow had become the blimp's pilot, even flying the mighty Goodyear craft over the New York World's Fair.

That's how he met Lou Gehrig. In failing health, Gehrig so often rode the blimp that he one day asked Jimmy Grow, "You like baseball?"

"Sure I do," the pilot said. "Doesn't everybody?"

Grow's son, Joel, tells the story because Gehrig's name is again in the news, forever linked with Cal Ripken Jr.'s. Besides, any time is a good time for a story that's good for a baseball lover's soul.

"Gehrig told Dad that any time he wanted to go to Yankee Stadium, to go up to one particular ticket booth and say, `Lou sent me,' "Joel Grow says. "Several weeks later, a gang of Dad and Mom's pals from Ohio was in town--and so were the Indians--so off they went to Yankee Stadium to see if Gehrig's offer would work.

"Dad said the magic words: Lou sent me."

The man in the ticket booth asked him to repeat it.

"`Uh, Lou sent me,' Dad said, suddenly not sure this was such a good idea. But the ticket seller said, `Buddy, how many people in your party?'"

"`Six,' Dad said, and the man told him, `You wait right over there.'"

The ticket seller closed his window, scurried into the stadium and came back with six ushers, who seated the Ohioans in general manager Ed Barrow's box behind the Yankee dugout and refused even a tip, the ticket seller saying, "Lou sent you."

Nor would vendors bringing beer and peanuts and hot dogs accept payment, the beer man saying, "Oh, nope, mister. Lou sent you."

Baseball is forever. Maybe it was only coincidence that Ripken officially announced his retirement on Lou Gehrig's 98th birthday. Maybe it's only coincidence Ripken's last scheduled game will be in Yankee Stadium, where the dying Gehrig pronounced himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Maybe.

Or maybe it's all of a piece, from Gehrig to Ripken to--well, here's another story, this one from the summer of 1996.