Wally Pipp is baseball version of Rodney Dangerfield (if you don’t him, he is a famous actor who coined the term ‘I get no respect around here’).
He was actually a decent first baseman player, who unfortunately got replaced by Lou Gehrig (you know, the GREATEST first baseman in baseball history) and was traded to Cincinnati Reds to finish out his career.
In four seasons with Yankees from 1921-1925, Pipp rarely missed games but on June 2, 2915, he asked his Yankee manager Miller Huggins to take him out of the lineup because he had a headache.
Huggins dutifully replaced him with Gehrig and the rest is history when Lou Gehrig did not sit down for almost 15 years or 2,130 games later.
Ever since than, 2 unfortunate baseball jargon started to circulate:
- When someone accuses of pulling a “Wally”, what he is really saying is that your are a lazy bum who likes to slack off and not do any work
- Similarly, if a guy is “Pipped” out, that means he is not coming to practice or game
So the moral of the story is don’t be a slacker looking to avoid practice and/or games. Do the hard work and be relentless!
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