This is goodbye. After editing this column for nearly 25 years, I am taking my act on the road and heading to Los Angeles to work on a new digital venture for News Corp.
No tears, please. This is not a demotion. I never dreamed, in 1984, when I started at Page Six, that I’d be here for a quarter of a century.
No one else did, either. In fact, about 20 years ago, when a hotshot reporter was brought onto the Page Six staff under me, a snarky media columnist wrote, “Shades of Wally Pipp.”
From our library, which still relied on yellowed clippings in weathered envelopes, I learned Wally Pipp was the Yankees first baseman in 1925, when he was benched for Lou Gehrig. The Iron Horse then went on to play a record 2,130 consecutive games for the Bronx Bombers.
Years later, I demanded an apology from the snarky columnist, saying, “I’m not Wally Pipp — I’m Lou Gehrig!”
It’s been a great run — despite my feuds with a Barfly, a Bloviator and an Uberdork, and a couple drinks thrown in my face.
It couldn’t have happened without this newspaper’s Murderers Row of reporters and editors who surrounded me, the sources who fed us scoops and the fans who claim, “It’s the first thing I read every morning.” Thank you all.
And keep reading — Emily Smith is not to be trifled with.
I’ll miss you. Having lived in New York my whole life, I’m not going to renounce the woeful Knicks and become a Lakers fan.
In the words of J.J. Hunsecker, “I love this dirty town.”