I wanted to pass along a message to the HBD community... it’s tragic and heartbreaking. I’m at a loss for words as I know many of you who knew thewheaties will be.

“I am sadly sharing the news that thewheaties, whose real name is Andy, passed away from COVID earlier this week. I know Andy from playing HBD together and we connected as friends on Facebook, which is how I was able to follow what was going on with him. I felt conflicted about whether to share this info at all since we weren't particularly close - I'm just not sure it's any of my business - but I know that he was friendly with some folks on here and thought that on balance it would be best to pass it along.

Andy ran an orphanage in India, along with his wife, and seems to have been a pretty exceptional human being. He leaves behind a wife and young son, in addition to the kids at the orphanage. His family has posted the following link on Facebook where donations can be made to help out his family and the orphanage. I decided to donate and to share the link with each of his commissioners in case anyone in the leagues he was in got to know him and would like to chip in. I am obviously not applying any pressure, I just became aware of this pretty tragic happening and felt like I wanted to do this small thing if I could. Here is the link:

https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MTE1OTQ3?fbclid=IwAR1tUCkJPcoS_kSkQE5xKyBr1WNx1mqZvcV2nWC_3O-PvopcPbuh7ArBgko


-Kevin”

A great person, a great owner and someone who was well respected by all who knew him!

R.I.P., thewheaties. Always admired what he was doing. He was in Scully with us until deciding to leave after this last season a couple weeks ago to focus on what was going on with him personally.

He was a great commissioner in Steinbrenner. And a better person for all he did in India. A terrible tragedy. God bless him.

This is just so sad. He was a fantastic commissioner who poured tons of money into gift cards every year to bring in new owners to the league, but he was clearly an incredible person with all the work he did running the orphanage in India. I'm just so sorry to learn he's gone, was just chatting with him a couple of weeks ago.

this is a tough one to swallow

Same man! Tough for sure! We’re going to do something special to honor him in Harold Reynolds!

The Steinbrenner league has announced that we are changing out league name in honor of thewheaties (Andy) to: No Longer Orphans. The name of the website of his orphanage. Hopefully bring a little attention to the great work he and his wife were doing with orphan boys in India.

I love that! We will be changing Harold Reynolds to Andrew “Thewheaties” Lepper

I too ended up connecting with thewheaties outside of WIS (also on Facebook) during our time together in Steinbrenner, which has now been renamed after him. After Game 6 ended, I saw the following post by his brother on there and I figured it was worth digging this thread up to share:

"If you knew my brother you know what a HUGE fan he was of the Braves!! We are so emotional they won the World Series! He would be so proud! I think he got his love of the Braves from Our Grandmother! Oh how we miss them both! Go Braves!!!"

I was rooting for the Braves anyway, but I'm extra happy they won now.

Yeah that’s awesome!

It's pretty amazing how close you can get to "online" friends be it through Facebook or WiS or any other website. In Fizworld we lost our commissioner "BigFiz" several years ago. We found out that he was a radio sportscaster I believe in Cincy. We retired the ballpark Fiz used when he was an owner in Fizworld. Still think about him to this day. Sorry for your loss guys. I never had the honor of playing with thewheaties.