Succession: This baseball name theory revealed the ending

The Succession finale closes the book on the Roy saga – but if we’d paid attention to the name of this baseball player, we’d have known the ending ages ago.

In our review, we called it a “note-perfect finale: heart-throttling, somber, infuriating, and thrilling from start to finish, echoing the view of the show as a whole. Who knows if anything will be able to succeed it.”

Showrunner Jesse Armstrong was open about what to expect: by the time the credits rolled, the series would have fulfilled the promise of its title. Kendall, Roman, Shiv, Tom, Greg, Matsson, Gerri, Lawrence Yee – the crown could have ended up on any of their heads.

Of course, we now know who’ll reign over Waystar Royco as the new CEO – and a huge clue has been sitting in front of us since the beginning.

Baseball player’s name was the key to the Succession winner

In the Succession finale, Tom Wambsgans becomes the new Waystar Royco CEO – and it turns out, his surname was a huge clue from the get-go.

Sophie Kihm, the editor-in-chief at Nameberry, recently posted a TikTok about the “intentional” names in the show. “Siobhan’s nickname Shiv can also refer to a knife, and the family’s surname Roy literally means king,” she says.

While TV writers tend to use fairly ordinary names, Kihm says we should “always pay attention when there’s a highly unusual surname on a TV show. In Succession, that surname, of course, is Wambsgans.”

According to Kihm, it’s a rare German surname. “Gans means goose in German, and the Wambs part of the surname comes from the Gothic given name Wamba, which means big paunch. Wamba also shares roots with the English word womb,” she continues.

While this is all intriguing information, Tom shares his surname with Bill Wambsganss (bar the extra “s”), a Major League Baseball player best known for “completing the only unassisted triple play in World Series history.”

In baseball, this is the exceedingly rare occasion when a single defensive player gets all three outs on his own in one continuous play without any assists from his teammates. According to the Baseball Almanac, it’s only been seen 15 times in the sport’s history.

So, you see the connection? In the Season 3 finale, he cuts all three of the Roy siblings out by ratting on them to Logan. In the last-ever episode, he becomes CEO by working against Shiv behind her back and eliminating Roman and Kendall – two triple plays across the show.

Succession Seasons 1-4 are available to stream on Max and Sky now. Check out our other coverage below:

Season 4 cast | Season 4 release schedule | Season 4 runtimes | Is Succession based on a real family? | What time does Succession drop? | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Ending explained