Rip Coleman
Walter Gary "Rip" Coleman (July 31, 1931 – May 14, 2004) was an American professional baseball player, a left-handed pitcher who played from 1955 to 1957 and 1959 to 1960 for the New York Yankees, Kansas City Athletics and Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball.
A native of Troy, New York he attended Syracuse University and Wake Forest University.
Before the 1952 season, Coleman was signed by the Yankees. He made his big league debut with them about three years later, on August 15, 1955. He went 2–1 in 10 games in his rookie season. In 29 innings of work, he allowed 40 hits and 17 earned runs for a 5.28 ERA. He also walked 16 batters and struck out only 15. He appeared in one game in the 1955 World Series, giving up five hits in one inning of work.
He showed great improvement in 1956, lowering his ERA to 3.67. In 29 games (nine starts), he posted a 3–5 record with 42 walks and 42 strikeouts in 881⁄3 innings of work.
On February 19, 1957, Coleman was involved in a multi-player trade between the Yankees and Athletics. The Yankees sent Coleman, Milt Graff, Billy Hunter, Mickey McDermott, Tom Morgan and Irv Noren to the Athletics for Art Ditmar, Bobby Shantz, Jack McMahan and Wayne Belardi. As players to be named later, the Yankees sent Jack Urban to the Athletics and the Athletics sent Curt Roberts and Clete Boyer to the Yankees to complete the trade.
