Happy Birthday: George Pipgras - Dec. 20, 1899

Today we celebrate the birthday of George Pipgras, a pitcher born 124 years ago who you may never have heard of, but he helped lead the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig teams in the Roaring Twenties to four World Series titles. Let’s get to it.

Any discussion pertaining to the 1927 Yankees - who still get plenty of support in the argument about the greatest team in MLB history - generally starts and ends with Murderer's Row, the batting order that included the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Bob Meusel, Earle Combs and Mark Koenig.

That offense was simply ridiculous as it led MLB in every major category including runs (976), home runs (158), triples (103), batting average (.307), on-base (.384), slugging (.488) and OPS (.872).

What often gets lost in all the offensive fireworks is that the 110-44 Yankees, who swept the Pirates in the World Series, also led the American League in ERA (3.20), runs allowed (605), shutouts (11) and walks/hits per innings pitched (1.304).

And part of the reason for that mound success was attributable to Pipgras who started 21 games that year and went 10-3 with a 4.11 ERA before throwing a complete game 6-2 victory against the Pirates in Game 2 of the Fall Classic.

“When we got to the ball park,” Pipgras said of that 1927 team, “we knew we were going to win. That’s all there was to it. We weren’t cocky. I wouldn’t call it confidence either. We just knew. Like when you go to sleep you know the sun is going to come up in the morning.”

Pipgras was born on Dec. 20, 1899 into a baseball-loving family, the patriarch being William who played and umpired locally before producing five sons who went on to play, none as successfully as George, though Ed played eight years of minor league ball before pitching five MLB games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938.

In 1917, before his 18th birthday, George lied about his age in order to join America’s World War I effort and he got away with it because he was already over six feet tall. He spent 18 Army months in France, England and Germany, coming home only because he came down with the Spanish Flu, the epidemic that swept the world.

Back in his native Iowa he assumed his future would be working on the family farm, but while playing for the local town team he was spotted by a man who had ties to the minor leagues and Pipgras eventually spent three years bouncing around the lower levels before Bob Connery, the Yankees head scout, suggested the Yankees make a trade with the Red Sox to bring him into the system. They did and he played briefly for the Yankees in 1923 and 1924, but his wildness was problematic and he spent 1925 and 1926 in the minors.

“Two years in the minor leagues will cure him,” manager Miller Huggins said, and he was right. Pipgras made the 1927 Yankees and once there he became a key rotation piece until 1933 when he was traded to the Red Sox for whom he finished his career in 1935.

Pipgras was a part of four championships, and he won his lone start in each of the 1927, 1928 and 1932 World Series. His best season came in 1928 when he led the AL in victories (24), games started (38), and innings (300.2) and posted a 3.38 ERA.

During portions of nine seasons spent with the Yankees, Pipgras went 93-64 with a 4.04 ERA, and after he retired, he turned to umpiring and he worked in the American League from 1939-45, of which he said, “It is pleasant work. Perhaps you don’t get the thrill out of umpiring a game in which there have been no kicks as you do over pitching a low-hit shutout, but you’re still in baseball, and in quite an important department of the game.”