"When Ruth’s estranged first wife, Helen, died in a fire in the winter of 1929, Gehrig sent him a letter of “heart-felt sympathy,” addressing Ruth as “George.” He wrote, “May the Almighty grant you and Dorothy sufficient strength to bear up during your bereavement. Your sincere friend, Lou Gehrig. Key West, Florida, where happiness reigns on a fishing trip I wish you shared.”59" (Boston Herald, January 16, 1929, reprinted in Sarnoff, 200.)
"The “feud” between Gehrig and Ruth is often simplistically attributed to a dispute arising from Mom Gehrig’s offhanded comment about Claire Ruth not dressing her stepdaughter, Dorothy, as nicely as her biological daughter, Julia. An offended Claire relayed the remark to her husband, who confronted Gehrig about it. “Tell your mom to mind her own business!” Ruth said. Well! Nobody insulted Lou’s mother! And the two supposedly never spoke again."(https://sabr.org/journal/article/babe-ruth-and-lou-gehrig/).
But, on and off, over many years they did speak. How could they not? Road trips, dug-outs......Lefty Gomez, a teammate starting in 1930, claimed that much of the Ruth-Gehrig rift was inflated rhetoric. “You keep hearing these stories about Babe and Lou not hitting it off,” he recalled. “When you consider ballplayers are together from February until October, there are going to be squabbles. But Babe and Lou enemies? Not a chance. Babe was an extrovert in the extreme and Lou was an introvert. Babe threw his money around and Lou counted his pennies. Babe liked the high life and Lou enjoyed the opera and the philharmonic. Babe was glib with the press; Lou found it hard to come up with a snappy quip. There may have been comments here and there that caused temporary chagrin, but Babe and Lou were teammates and friends on and off the field. The press created a feud between Ruth and Gehrig that I never saw. Babe and Lou were both dear friends of mine as well as teammates, and I respected the fact that they lived life their own way. Nothing more, nothing less.”63 (Vernona Gomez and Lawrence Goldstone, Lefty: An American Odyssey (New York: Ballantine Books, 2012), 184-85.
The 1934 All-Star Goodwill Tour of Japan did cause a rift between Lou and the Babe."The goodwill tour of Japan the previous winter – featuring Ruth, Gehrig, and 13 other American League stars – widened the rift. The pair must have been on speaking terms beforehand, as Ruth lent the stingy Gehrig $5,000 at the outset of the tour to last him until his paycheck.66(Leavy, 413.)"
"But on the ship across the Pacific, something went wrong. It happened when Claire Ruth crossed paths one day with Eleanor Gehrig, Lou’s wife of about a year. They pooh-poohed whatever bad blood there was between their husbands, and Claire invited Eleanor back to their cabin. The Babe was waiting, and alcohol was involved. Innocent revelry may have been all that occurred.68(Rumors of an affair between Babe Ruth and Eleanor Gehrig are unsubstantiated speculation.)
"But Lou was worried sick that his new bride had disappeared for several hours, and The Babe was the source of his fury. Gehrig coldly blew off Ruth’s peace offering.69(See Eleanor Gehrig and Joseph Durso, My Luke and I (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), 189-90. June O’Dea Gomez, Lefty’s wife, noted in her journal that she spent a night drinking with Claire Ruth and Eleanor Gehrig on the same Japan trip. Whether that was before or after the incident in the Ruths’ cabin is unclear. Gomez and Goldstone, 185.)"
"Dorothy Ruth Pirone said in her memoir that Ruth did visit Gehrig “often” as his health deteriorated, over Claire’s objections."
"When Ruth learned of Gehrig’s death at age 37 on June 2, 1941, he broke down. “No, no … this is terrible, terrible news. It can’t be true,” he said. “I knew how ill Lou was, but I think all of us hoped, even against hope, that he would fight his way out. “Lou was like a son to me. When illness forced him to retire, I was as heartbroken as he was. Believe me when I say his memory should always be kept green as an inspiration to all of us.”81 (“Babe Ruth Cries When Informed of Death,” International News Service, Syracuse Journal, June 3, 1941.)