Daughter of famous Yankee dead at 85

The daughter of New York Yankees first baseman Wally Pipp - who in 1925 famously complained of a headache only to be replaced by rookie Lou Gehrig - has died.

Dorothy Gibler passed away April 8 at Alden Poplar Creek Rehabilitation Center in Hoffman Estates, where she had lived the last six years. Before that, she had raised her family in Arlington Heights. She was 85.

"She never really talked about it much when we were growing up," says Mrs. Gibler's daughter, Noralee Mack of Rolling Meadows. "But in her later years, when she had more time, she talked about it all the time. In the nursing home, everyone knew the story."

Mrs. Gibler, the second of Pipp's four children, and only daughter, was just a year old when her father lost his starting position to one of baseball's greatest players. Gehrig would go on to play in the next 2,130 games, or 14 straight years, without missing a day.

Pipp was traded to the Cincinnati Reds where he played for three more seasons before closing out his career in 1929 with a Yankees' minor league team in Newark.

"My father never held a grudge," says Mrs. Gibler's only surviving brother, Tom Pipp of Sarasota, Fla. "He had played 10 years with the Yankees. He had had a great career."

According to her family, Mrs. Gibler and her siblings knew Babe Ruth personally. He and their father had roomed together, from 1919 to 1925 while playing for the Yankees, and they remained close after retirement.

"My Dad used to bring him up to Michigan every fall for deer season," Tom Pipp recalls.

Their father also stayed in touch with Gehrig, whom Tom Pipp described as "a real gentleman."

"My dad had breakfast with him at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit, the day he announced his retirement," Tom Pipp adds. "They were pretty close."

After retiring from baseball, Pipp returned to his native Michigan where he landed a job as a salesman for the Rockford Screw Products Corp., selling to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co.

In a six-page spread on Pipp's life and his unique place in baseball history, that appeared in a 1987 edition of Sports Illustrated, Mrs. Gibler was interviewed about her father.

"He was very successful," she told reporter Bruce Anderson. "He was a great talker, a great salesman. He loved calling on people."

Mrs. Gibler inherited some of her father's ability to deal with customers. She helped her husband run Bill's Standard Oil Station in Arlington Heights, before working with her brother, Tom, for a few years with his Pipp Mobile Systems in Grand Rapids.

Besides her daughter and brother, Mrs. Gibler is survived by four sons, including Michael (Denise), Timothy, William (Shari), David and former daughter-in-law Dierdre Gibler; as well as seven grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will take place at 9:30 a.m. May 22 at Our Lady of the Wayside Church, 432 W. Park St. in Arlington Heights.