Fred Kipp: Forgotten Lefty

                               Not too long ago, Carl Erskine passed away. With his passing, only 5 former Brooklyn Dodgers are still alive. The oldest is Tommy Brown, born December 6th, 1927. In December he will be 97 years old. Next is Fred Kipp, born in 1931. Fred will turn 93 in September. Then there is Jim Gentile, born in 1934, Koufax, born in 1935, and Bob Aspromonte, born in 1938. 

                                     Most of today’s Dodger fans, unless they know the history of the team, have no idea who Fred Kipp was. born in the small town of Piqua, Kansas. Population as of 2020, 90. He was third child of Chuck and Ida Kipp. He has an older brother, Tom, and sister, Donna. Piqua is also the birthplace of silent film star, Buster Keaton. Fred would play baseball in the summer and basketball in the winter. 

                                     He was a standout athlete, and he became the star of the Iola High basketball team. After WWII ended, the Piqua town baseball team started playing again. Fred was 14 when he began pitching for the team. He played against men twice his age and struck them out. He became known for his knuckleball.

                                    When he was 18, he hitchhiked to Mississippi to enter a NY Giants tryout camp. He was offered a contract but decided to go to college instead. He was recruited to Kansas State by legendary coach, Tex Williams on a basketball scholarship. After one semester, he transferred to Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia, Kansas, so he could play basketball and baseball.

                                    He threw a no-hitter as a freshman at Washburn University and then started playing for the Emporia town team in the summer of 1950. Along with playing the better teams from Ft. Riley, Wichita, and Topeka, they also played the barnstorming Kansas City Monarchs. In the summers of 51 and 52, he played for the Chamberlain Chiefs in South Dakota, and then the Superior Knights in Nebraska. 

                                  He was invited to a tryout with the Dodgers in the spring of 1953, so over the Easter break, he took a 40-hour train ride to Vero Beach. He went to spring training as a free agent and then joined the Dodger organization. After graduating from Emporia, he was assigned to the Miami Sunsox in the Florida International League. He pitched poorly in Miami and within a month he was sent to the Ashville Tourists.

                                   The cool mountain air in North Carolina agreed with him and he got hot. He finished with a 15-5 record and a 2.24 ERA. At the end of the season, Fred was drafted into the United States Army. The Korean War was ending when he went to basic training at Ft. Rucker Alabama. Like many other professional ballplayers, he was placed on a baseball team. He began pitching for a 136th Bearcats and won 10 straight games. One of the pitchers he went up against was Vinegar Bend Mizell. He would face him again when he got to the majors.

                                  He got out of the Army in 1955 and went to Greely, Colorado, to attend graduate school at the University of Northern Colorado. Kipp was soon back pitching for the Kearney Irishmen of the Nebraska International League. When Billy Martin heard that Fred was pitching in the Great Plains, he went and convinced him to play for the Goodland Tigers. Martin was stationed at Ft. Carson, Colorado at the time and managed the Goodland team.

                                      Fred pitched well and led the Tigers to some wins before Clay Bryant, the coach of the Mobile Bears, recruited him to the Southern Association. Fred pitched for three teams that summer, moving up to a better one each time. The Bears were a Dodger AA affiliate and Fred joined them with 7 weeks left in the season. He went 4-2 and helped the Bears into the playoffs. He beat Birmingham twice to earn the right to play in the Dixie Series against the winners of the Texas League playoffs. The Bears beat the Shreveport Sports in four straight games.

                                  He was convinced to play winter ball in Venezauela. The 1000 dollars a month was a huge pay raise. But thing did not go well down there and he returned after a month. Fred went to spring training with the World Champion Dodgers in 1956. He had the Boys of Summer behind him, and he was relieving guys like Erskine and Newcombe. He faced a lot of MLB greats like Williams and Mantle. He didn’t make the team out of training and was sent to Montreal. 

                                 Kipp had a great season in Montreal. He went 20-7, had 127 strikeouts and pitched 254 innings. He was named the ROY in the International League. He got called up when the rosters expanded in September. He never got into a game, but watched from the bullpen as the Dodgers went on to win the pennant. He was ineligible for the World Series against the Yankees, but he went along and pitched batting practice. He was a witness to Larsen’s perfect game.                          

                                 The day after losing the World Series, the team left on a goodwill tour of Japan. 51 players, coaches, wives and friends, boarded a plane for a trip that would cover 9,254 miles in 29 hours. They stopped in LA, Maui, Honolulu and Wake Island. They arrived in Japan with much fanfare. They would play 19 games against professional Japanese teams and All-Star teams from all over Japan. The photo above is Hodges, Reese and Kipp visiting Hiroshima. while he had not pitched in Brooklyn, he pitched more than any other pitcher while they were in Japan.

                                    He brought something the Japanese players had never seen before, his knuckleball. Japanese third baseman, Atushi Hadoka said ” Kipp is a hard pitcher to get to, I could not hit any of his inside balls. They cut the corner sharp, and I still do not know if they were knuckleballs, or palm balls.” He threw one complete game and struck out 26 in 43 innings.

                                    Fred went to spring training with the team in 1957. No one knew it at the time, but it was their last year in Brooklyn. He pitched well and even broke spring with the team. He was there for a couple of weeks, but he did not get into a game. He was sent back to Montreal and was not recalled until September. He had a 8-17 record at Montreal with 10 complete games and 99 Ks. He got the call in September and got his cup of coffee on September 10th against the Cubs. He went 4 innings but gave up 6 hits and 4 runs. That winter the Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles.

                                     Between 1957-60, Fred would pitch in the Dominican League. He pitched for what now is Santo Domingo. He was the first pitcher to win 10 games. He helped Escogido win the title in 57-58 and 59-60 seasons. He pitched alongside young Juan Marichal and the Alou brothers. This was before he pitched in the minors and won more games than any other pitcher in the majors. Ozzie Virgil, the first Dominican to reach the majors was on Kipp’s team.

                                      With the Dodgers now in Los Angeles, Kipp made the team out of spring training and became a regular Dodger. He got his first start on April 25th against the Cardinals in front of 60,000 who had come to see Stan Musial. Musial went 4-4, but Kipp got the win 5-3. Musial was thrown out at home twice. Kipp pitched in 40 games. He started 9 and relieved in 31 others. He pitched 102 innings and had a 6-6 record for the 71-83 Dodgers. Their first losing season since 1944. Kipp won the silver slugger award for pitchers that season with a .250 average.

                                        In 1959, Kipp was sent back to AAA to the St. Paul team in the new American Association. He went 14-11 and was the workhorse on the team. He was called up to LA in September while the Dodgers were locked in a three-way race for the pennant. He pitched in two games and helped the Dodgers into a three-game playoff with the Braves. He was not on the World Series roster that beat the White Sox for the first title in LA.

                                         In the spring of 1960, not wanting to go down to St. Paul again, Kipp asked to be traded. The Dodgers obliged him and traded him to the Yankees for Gordon Windhorn and Dick Sanders. Roger Maris also joined the Yankees that year.                            Fred would pitch in four games before he was sent to Richmond, Virginia to pitch for the Virginians. The Virginians were in the International League and Kipp soon found himself pitching against the Montreal Royals and the Havana Sugar Kings. Castro had just recently overthrown the government. Kipp reported that kids patrolled the streets with rifles and shotguns. They would fire them into the air when the Kings made a good play. Later that season, a player for the Rochester Red Wings, Frank Verdi, who was standing in for the first base coach, when he was struck in the head by a stray bullet. Verdi was wearing a plastic lining in his cap in lieu of a batting helmet. The bullet was deflected by the plastic and went into his shoulder causing a minor wound. 

                         That was enough for the International League, and they moved the Sugar Kings to New Jersey, where they became the New Jersey Jersey’s. Meanwhile Kipp became the ace reliever for the Virginians, pitching in 47 games in 60, 50 in 61 and 53 in 62. He would go 17-24 over those three seasons.

                          In the winter of 60-61, he stayed in Kansas City where he met and became engaged to Susan Kokoruda after dating for a few months. They married in the fall of 1961 and honeymooned in Puerto Rico where Kipp was pitching for the Ponce team. Kipp turned 30 and only stayed in the league for month before returning to Kansas City. During the 1962 season, his first son Chris was born, and the writing was on the wall. Making a living and raising a family in the minor leagues was not compatible. With little chance of getting back to the majors, Kipp retired after the 1962 season. 

                         Fred finished with a 6-7 record, a 5.08 ERA and 64 strikeouts. There was no information on what he did after he retired. I doubt many Dodger fans today even know this guy existed. He was in two Topps card sets, the 1959 and 1960 Topps. I have both. He is now 92 years old and will turn 93 on October 1st. 

                                                                                            Minor League Wrap-up

                             Tacoma 10 OKC 4: OKC was down 9-0 after 3 innings in a game started by Alex Gamboa. He went 2.2 innings giving up all 9 runs, only 1 was earned. OKC did not help themselves as they made 3 errors. Outman, Cartaya and Gauthier. OKC would score 3 in the bottom of the 6th. Cartaya and Hoese connected for homers. A 2-run shot by Cartaya. 

                              Frisco 5 Tulsa 0: Tulsa was shut out by the Frisco Rough Riders. Kendall Williams went 5 innings and gave up 3 runs. Kopp in the bottom of the 8th, struck out the side. But he also allowed 2 homers for the final 2 runs. The Drillers managed just 5 hits, 4 of which were singles. 

                               Great Lakes 4 Lake Country 3: The Loons squeezed out a walk off win against the Captains. Loons scored first in the bottom of the third on a double by Liranzo that scored DePaula. Lake Country came back with 2 in the top of the 4th to take the lead. They would score another in the top of the 8th off of Carson Hobbs. In the bottom of the ninth, down 3-2, Nevin struck out. Gelof walked and Jordan Thompson reached on a fielding error and Gelof went to second. A balk sent them to 2nd and 3rd, and then Jake Vogel doubled them both in for the win. Livan Rinoso got the win, his 5th. 

                                Quakes 9 66ers7: Rancho scored all 9 of their runs in the first 5 innings including a 5-run 4th inning. Then held on for the win at Inland Empire. Decker drove in 3 of the runs with a triple. Munoz had 3 hits, Perez, Rojas and Diaz 2 apiece. Diaz also drove in 2 runs. Day went 4.2 innings giving up 3. Emmett pitched one inning and was tagged for 4. Cabrera picked up his 5th win and Ruebeck got his 4th save.