On Rosh Hashanah: Lipman "Lip Pike"

Lipman Emanuel (“Lip”) Pike was baseball’s first Jewish superstar and arguably the game’s first professional player. “The Big Book of Jewish Baseball” author Peter S. Horvitz wrote that in 1866 Pike agreed to accept $20 per week to play third base for the Philadelphia Athletics. Before he turned professional, Pike debuted with the Brooklyn Athletics in 1865, one of the 12 teams in two leagues he played for until 1887. Ostensibly, the players were amateurs but many, including Pike, took money under the table. Whether or not Pike was the first professional is debatable but there’s no argument that he had an impact on the game as a slugger. Pike was also the first Jewish manager, having piloted the Troy Haymakers, the Hartford Dark Blues, and the Cincinnati Reds.

The son of a Jewish haberdasher of Dutch origin named Emanuel and his wife Jane, Pike was born in New York City. Lip had an older brother, Boaz, two younger brothers, Israel and Jacob, and a sister, Julia. The Pike familymoved to Brooklyn when Lip was very young. Boaz was the first of the Pike brothers to play base ball, as the sport’s name was spelled in the sport’s earliest days. Just one week after his bar mitzvah, Lip, along with Boaz, appeared in his first recorded game, an amateur contest.

In the dead ball era, power is relative since batted balls rarely left the infield. So, logically fans---or cranks as they were called in the 19th century---were agog when, in 1871, Pike tied the National Association record for homers with four. He wound up with 21 career homers and a .322 batting average. Baseball scribes wrote that Pike possessed “great speed, a powerful if erratic throwing arm, and enormous power.” Early homerun king Pike, known as the “Iron Batter,” hit 17.2 percent of all homers in the league in 1872, a number not bested until 1920 when the New York Yankees’ Babe Ruth broke the record with 20.07 percent.

Pike began playing at age 13 and made his name with the Athletics. In one game, Pike hit five home runs. Despite his homerun hitting prowess, the Athletics dropped Pike from their roster. Since he was New York-born, Athletics officials considered Pike a “foreigner.” Whenever ownership deemed the Athletics play suspicious, as in thrown at gamblers’ behest, “foreigners” had been the most suspected of crooked play. Non-native Philadelphians’ loyalty to the Athletics was perpetually questioned.

Pike moved onto the New York Mutuals, and then to the Brooklyn Atlantics where he hit an eye-popping .610. Baseball historians note that Pike, for all his prowess, benefited mightily from the dimensions of the parks he played in. Cincinnati’s Lake Front Park, for example, measured 180 feet down the left field line, and 196 down right.

For reasons unknown, the powerful Pike could never stay with one club for very long. He joined the Haymakers for its inaugural season and hit .377. By 1872, Pike went to the Baltimore Canaries where he put together three outstanding seasons and led the league in homers for the third straight season with four. Moreover, Pike consistently finished among the league’s top sluggers in total bases, hits, extra base hits, slugging, doubles, RBIs and stolen bases.

The Iron Batter’s most memorable feat occurred off the field. On a hot summer day in 1873, Pike won an unusual Baltimore sporting contest: he outran a racing horse named Clarence in a 100-yard dash contest, and took home $250, about $5,000 in today’s dollars.

Pike died of heart disease in 1893 at the young age of 48. The Sporting News wrote of Pike: “Pike was the center fielder of the Atlantics of Brooklyn in the latter’s palmiest days and as an all-round batsman, fielder and base runner he had few if any superiors. He was a left-handed batsman and, in his day, could hit the ball as hard as any man in the business. He was a right field hitter and during his career had sent balls over the right field fence of nearly every park in which he had played in.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com