Wally Pipp

The last two posts have been serious, so it is time to do something light hearted. The picture here is a baseball card I just got. This year Upper Deck is doing one of the largest sets of cards ever. Since Yankee Stadium is closing and a new stadium is being readied, they are issuing one card for every game played there. There will be 6100 cards in the full set. I like collecting cards, but there is no way I will be a completeist for this set. I may be crazy, but not that crazy. This card here is the first one I got in a pack. The man here is Wally Pipp, who, as the vstory goes, had a headache and sat out a game. His replacement was one Lou Gehrig, who would not miss another game until 1939, 2130 consecutive games. The true story is Pipp was in a bit of a slump and the Yankees manager wanted to shake the up the lineup. Pipp was a good player and played two more years with the Cincinnatti Reds. He led the American League in Home Runs in 1916 and 1917 when he hit 12 and 9 respectively. These are very low numbers compared to today, but the baseball was different in those days and home run totals as you can see were much lower. I bought 4 more packs of cards and thought as I was opening them, wouldn't it be cool if I got a Lou Gehrig card. Guess what?


The Iron Horse himself. A very humble man who had his life cut short from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Even though he knew he was dying, he addressed a crowd at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, proclaimed himself the luckiest man on earth. Getting the Pipp and Gehrig cards were a nice touch. The only thing that could topp it would be also getting a Babe Ruth card. To repeat myself: guess what?


In addition to these three I also got cards with Yankee pitchers Waite Hoyt and Earle Combs. I will post those if anyone wants to see them, otherwise they won't be seen. After I work tonight I am on vacation. There will be no blogging until I get back, then I will try to post something every day.

I almost forgot. One of my friends from The Captains Board invited me and several others to participate in his 500th blog post. I was honored to be asked. If you want to know what those of us who participated feel the meaning of life is, go here.