Wally Pipp - Encyclopedia

Walter Clement Pipp (February 17, 1893 - January 11, 1965) was an American first baseman in Major League Baseball, now best remembered as the man who lost his starting role to Lou Gehrig at the beginning of Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games.

After playing 12 games with the Detroit Tigers in 1913, the Chicago-born Pipp joined the New York Yankees for the 1915 season, and would play 136 or more games for them every season until 1925 (except 1918 which was curtailed by injury), hitting .282 with little power, even after the end of the "dead ball" era. Pipp did lead the American League with 12 home runs in 1916, and again with 9 in 1917.

On June 2, 1925 he was scratched from the Yankees' starting lineup and replaced with Gehrig. While many stories over the years have suggested that Pipp sat out the game due to a headache, the real story is that Yankees manager Miller Huggins benched Pipp along with other veterans to "shake up" the slumping lineup. A month later he received a skull fracture when he was beaned with a practice pitch from Charlie Caldwell, an event which has also mistakenly been linked to his initial benching. He did not play again for the Yankees and was traded to the Cincinnati Reds before the 1926 season, for whom he played 372 games over the next three seasons before retiring.

Pipp died at age 71 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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