abstract
| - 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, Pipp graduated from The Catholic University of America in 1914. The Chicago-born Pipp then 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 a 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. Pipp was the first Yankee to win a Home Run title. Pipp also led the league in triples with 19 in 1924 (his last full year as a Yankee regular). Pipp scouted and asked Miller Huggins to sign young Lou Gehrig from Columbia University, whom Pipp personally helped develop as a young first baseman. Wally Pipp was then traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1926, but played in Old Timers games as a Yankee. He was later hired by Sports Illustrated as one of the magazine's first writers. His 226 sacrifices as a Yankee is still a team record.
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