 Rud Rennie served as an honorary pallbearer in Babe Ruth's funeral in 1948.In his stories and magazine features, Rennie was an early booster of the Yankees’ first baseman and slugger Lou Gehrig, who had joined the team in 1923 and enjoyed his breakout season in 1926.When in 1936 it was noted in the media that Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller was retiring from his long screen role as Tarzan the Ape Man in the Hollywood films memorializing the hero of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, with urging by Gehrig's wife Eleanor (for whom Rennie had ghosted a magazine article), as well as his agent, Rennie promoted his friend Lou Gehrig's cause in Hollywood as an actor.