When Lou Gehrig died 50 years ago today, on June 2, 1941, 17 days before his 38th birthday, he had already won his place among baseball's demigods.

But one question lingers today among his legion of admirers, which includes a surprising number of young people searching for heroes. These fans are eager to learn what Gehrig's true relationship was with his Yankee brother-in-arms, Babe Ruth. For after all, these two sluggers formed the marrow of the Yankees' omnipotent ball club from 1925, when Gehrig became a regular, through 1934, when Ruth's Yankee career ended, as complementary as ham and eggs.

At first the two dissimilar men formed a mutual admiration society, despite the fact that Ruth was an outrageously undisciplined man in every facet of his life except home-run hitting, while the modest, insecure Gehrig was never much taken with flamboyance or empty boasting. The larger-than-life Ruth was "a runaway personality," remarked Eleanor Gehrig, who married Lou in 1933. Lou, on the other hand, took his role as loyal son and team player quite seriously. The Irritation of Proximity

Sharing confidences, eating, traveling and barnstorming together, playing cards, swapping batting tips, fishing and golfing together, Ruth and Gehrig should have grown closer with the passing years. Instead, they pulled apart, their sharp differences of personality and character souring their relationship.