‘Succession’ producer debunks Tom Wambsgans baseball theory

One of the most fun internet theories in recent history has been squashed like a bug.

Several days before the “Succession” series finale aired on HBO on Sunday night, nameberry.com editor-in-chief Sophie Kihm predicted in a video that went wildly viral that Tom Wambsgans would emerge as head of Waystar-Royco, on the basis that Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss pulled off an unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series.

While Wambsgans did indeed emerge as head of Waystar Royco in the series’ final episode, “Succession” executive producer Frank Rich threw water on the idea that there was a long-plotted baseball Easter egg.

“I hate to spoil the internet’s fun, but it’s false,” Rich told Slate.

“Tom’s family name was picked before we had shot a first season, let alone mapped out precise story twists that would culminate 39 episodes later! Not to mention that many of the key writers on the show, starting with its creator, Jesse [Armstrong], are British, live in London, and are devoted to British football.”

Semantically, Wambsgans did not pull off an unassisted triple play — he needed the help of his wife, Shiv Roy, whom he had already bested in the competition for the U.S. leadership role in her late father’s media and theme park conglomerate.

Rich, a writer for New York Magazine who was previously a New York Times columnist, believed there might have been someone who worked on “Succession” who was related to someone named Wambsgans, or at least in any event it was intended to sound foreign.

“If memory serves,” Rich continued, “we were looking for something off-key that would be awkward to say/pronounce, befitting a character who arrives as an outsider in the Roys’ world.”