Can one day change your life? That certainly seemed the case with Wally Pipp, a starting first baseman for the New York Yankees who lost his job on June 2, 1925. That’s because Lou Gehrig took his place. Gehrig went on to become a legend and play 2,130 consecutive games.

Pipp, on the other hand, became symbolic to this day as a cautionary tale. That is, there’s always someone waiting to take your job if you don’t show up or perform well.

That day in early June, as well as Pipp’s life and career, became the focus of many baseball fans and, later, historians. Who was Wally Pipp? Did he really take himself out of the lineup in 1925 because he had a headache? Or was it more about Pipp’s level of play at that time? What happened to Pipp afterwards? Read on for the answers.

The Early Life of Wally Pipp

Wally Pipp was born Feb. 17, 1893 in Chicago to a Roman Catholic family, though accounts differ as to whether they were German or Irish. He was raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., and studied architecture at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. While at school, he played for the Catholic University Cardinals, and in 1912 he made his minor league debut with the interestingly named Kalamazoo Celery Champs.

Late in the 1912 season, the Detroit Tigers purchased Pipp’s contract. He demanded a portion of the purchase price, but, as he was still just a kid and a class D player to boot, the Tigers turned him down.

For the first few months of the 1913 season, Pipp played for the minor league teams in Providence and Scranton before the Tigers finally called up. However, Pipp’s performance was quite disappointing, so he was sent back down to the minors for the 1914 season. But this year, in which he played for the Rochester Hustlers, Pipp became the best player in the league, and thus he returned to the majors the next year–but not with the Tigers. Instead, they sold his contract to the New York Yankees, and it was with them that Pipp would spend most of his career.

A Deadball Era Power Hitter

Pipp joined the Yankees big league club in 1915, toward the end of the Deadball Era that ran from 1900 until Babe Ruth brought power hitting to the game in 1919. During this era, Pipp stood out as a power hitter. He led the American League in home runs in 1916 (with 12 homers) and 1917 (with 9). Not exactly huge home run numbers, but for that era, it made Pipp a star.

In 1918, as World War I raged overseas, the United States government issued a “work or fight” order requiring all able-bodied men to serve either in the military or in civilian occupations that were important for the war effort. Pipp became a naval aviation cadet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When he returned to the Yankees in 1919, Babe Ruth had already stolen all of his thunder, and his record as the American League’s top home-run hitter. Pipp actually improved as a player during the early 1920s and performed far better than he had during the Deadball Era, hitting .280 or better (including two seasons over .300) from 1920 to 1924. But he was completely overshadowed by the legendary Bambino.

The Fateful Day in 1925

Although overshadowed, Pipp remained the starting first baseman for the Yankees until June 2, 1925. On that day, Pipp famously lost his position to Gehrig.

According to legend, he had a severe headache that morning (he suffered from frequent headaches after being beaned by a hockey puck in his youth) and requested some aspirin to help with the pain. Miller Huggins, the manager for the Yankees, decided to bench Pipp and played Gehrig instead.

However, despite Pipp himself perpetuating this story (he said in an interview that he had taken “the two most expensive aspirin in history”), according to certain accounts, this tale is a myth, and Pipp was actually taken out just because he hadn’t been playing very well.

Pipp’s own children do not agree on what happened (some say it was a headache, some say the manager pulled him because of poor play) but they all disagree with a version of the story that Pipp lost his job because he was at the horse track.

A Slow Career Decline

Whatever the reason behind his benching, it ended up being the beginning of the end for Pipp’s career. About a month later, Pipp was hit in the head by a baseball during practice, landing him in the hospital for a week. He had limited playing time for the rest of the season.

The Yankees traded him in 1926 to the Cincinnati Reds. After a strong 1926 season in which Pipp hit .291 and drove in 99 runs, his numbers began to drop. The Reds released Pipp before the 1929 season. Pipp returned to the minors for his final year of baseball, playing for the Newark Bears. After batting .312 for this season, Pipp retired from baseball.

Pipp started buying and selling on the stock market, even writing a book about it called “Buying Cheap and Selling Dear,” but he lost his wealth during the market crash of 1929. He took various jobs during the Depression, including publishing, writing radio scripts, and announcing a pregame baseball broadcast for the Tigers.

During World War II, Pipp took a factory job building B-24 bombers. After the war, he worked for the Rockford Screw Products Corporation, selling bolts and screws to car companies in Detroit and Grand Rapids. He regularly attended Old-Timers games with the Yankees and the Tigers.

In 1963, after suffering from a series of strokes, Pipp was admitted to a rest home in Grand Rapids. He spent the rest of his life in poor health, and died of a heart attack in 1965. He was 71 years old.

Sports Illustrated wrote that Pipp’s story remains so well-known because it is “a wonderful allegory for the Protestant work ethic: Skip a day of work and you’ll suffer dire consequences. Nearly everyone harbors the fear that the boss will find someone younger, quicker and better to do his job. No one wants to find out just how replaceable he really is, particularly ballplayers, who have short careers to begin with.”