Editor?s note: Piqua native Fred Kipp, who pitched Major League Baseball in the 1950s for the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles and later the New York Yankees, will be in Yates Center Saturday to sign copies of his biography, ?The Last Yankee Dodger? during the Yates Center Memorial Day celebration. His son, Scott, who penned his father?s biography, was in Japan last fall to trace Fred Kipp?s journey as part of a tour of Japan while with Brooklyn in 1956. Scott Kipp?s recounting of his father?s travels follows.
Fred Kipp of Piqua traveled the world with the skill of his pitching arm. As a professional baseball pitcher, Kipp hurled in seven countries on three continents. After playing for the Piqua town team from 1946 to 1949, Kipp went on to play with the most successful baseball teams in the 1950s and 1960s ? the Brooklyn Dodgers, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. Kipp traveled by trains, planes and automobiles to face batters from around the world.
