Babe Ruth in terms of being good at baseball and being a promotable personality in the game, may just be the greatest baseball player and athlete of all time. That can be up for debate at another time, but what is not up for debate is that there was a guy leading the league in home runs on the Yankees before the Great Bambino ever go there, and his name is Wally Pipp.
Yes, That Wally Pipp. The one that Lou Gehrig Replaced one day and then Lou never missed another start for 13 years. Wally Pipp was the definition of a slugger before Babe Ruth came through and redefined just about everything that had to do with hitting. Pipp was always among the league leaders in home runs and strike outs. In 1916, Pipp lead the league in both statistics with 12 round trippers and 82 strikeouts. Those are incredibly terrible numbers today, but back in the day, those got you paid the big bucks... or like $5,000 a year ($150,000) today.
During the rise of the 1920's Yankees, Pipp was a big contributor to the success. With Babe Ruth needing protection behind him in the batting order, Yankees skipper Miller Huggins chose none other than Wally Pipp to bat cleanup. Ruth and Pipp were not the best of friends even though they were both sluggers on the Yankees. Their relationship came to a boiling point when Pipp dropped a pop-up in the 1922 season and Babe Ruth had some words to say with his fists to Pipp. The scrummage did not last long and Ruth wanted to settle it after the game, which he later never showed up for. Babe Ruth got alpha'd by a dude named Wally LOL.
After the 1922 season in which the Yankees lost the World Series to the cross town rival New York Giants for the second year in a row, Wally Pipp did some scouting at the nearby Columbia University. While he was scouting he saw a young Lou Gehrig pimping 450 home runs to the opposite field. Wally told manager Miller Huggins about Lou Gehrig and the rest is history. Well not really, Lou was only a bench player for the first few years of his career. Pipp was a mentor to Gehrig and helped him develop throughout his time with the Yankees.
Now for the part you have been waiting for, when Wally Pipp, got Wally Pipped. It was a hot summer day in June of 1925 when Wally showed up to the ball park with a headache. When he went to the trainer to take some aspirin, Miller Huggins saw him and told him to take it easy today as he was going to let Gehrig get the start. Now, the rest is history. Pipp would go on to say that he took the two most expensive aspirin in history. But is that what really happened?
The headache story is the most popular version of the story. In the movie "The Pride of the Yankees" which is about Gehrig's life, it is said that Pipp was experiencing double vision from being hit in the head a few days earlier. In 1953, Pipp himself told the New York Times that he was taken out because he got hit in the head by a pitch during batting practice which he did... a month after the benching. So not even the guy who got benched knows why he got benched. Another theory is that Pipp struggled against leftys and there was a lefty scheduled to pitch against the Yankees that day. Lou Gehrig's wife backs the reason that Pipp was betting on horse racing and was late to the game which is why he was benched. Pipp's children deny this claim from Gehrig's wife saying that their father never bet on horses. However, Wally Pipp's children were interviewed by Sports Illustrated and said that their father told Yankees manager Miller Huggins to bench him and start Lou because Lou had a better future with the Yankees than himself. Do you know whats easier than thinking about the truth of all this he said she said stuff? Saying the guy had a headache.
After Wally Pipp was Wally Pipped, he was sent to the waivers and signed by the Reds. He would play there for a few years before retiring. After retiring in 1929, Pipp put all of his money in the stock market, which would immediately crash. Did Wally Pipp's money get Wally Pipped by the Great Depression? Wally also served in WWII making B-24 Bombers which kind of rocks to be a MLB player and then make B-24s. But Wally Pipp is not remembered for leading the league in home runs twice or winning the first ever Yankees World Series. He is remembered for having a headache and his replacement being a better version of him. He might be the only man in history who is remembered for being replaced by someone better. If you can think of another one let me know in the comments below.
Thank you for reading today's blog. I love when I can say "you just got Wally Pipped" to someone and they have no idea who the guy is. Share with a friend you Wally Pipped before.
That is the Tea, with T
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