36 Facts About Rube Waddell

George Edward Waddell was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Rube Waddell is best remembered for his highly eccentric behavior, and for being a remarkably dominant strikeout pitcher in an era when batters were expert at making contact and avoiding making an out without putting a ball in play.

Rube Waddell had an excellent fastball, a sharp-breaking curveball, a screwball, and superb control; his strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3-to-1, and he led the major leagues in strikeouts for six consecutive years.

Rube Waddell was born on October 13,1876, just outside Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Biographer Alan Levy wrote that Rube Waddell was "a decidedly different sort of child".

Related searches

Rube Waddell strengthened his arm as a child by throwing rocks at birds he encountered while working on his family's land.

Rube Waddell worked on mining and drilling sites as a youngster, which helped his conditioning.

Rube Waddell was notably unpredictable; early in his career, he once left in the middle of a game to go fishing.

Rube Waddell had a longstanding fascination with fire trucks and ran off the field to chase after them during games on multiple occasions.

Rube Waddell would disappear for months at a time during the offseason, and it was not known where he went until it was discovered that he was wrestling alligators in a circus.

Rube Waddell was easily distracted by opposing fans who held up puppies, which caused him to run over to play with them, and shiny objects, which seemed to put him in a trance.

Rube Waddell rejoined Louisville in the final month of the 1899 season and won seven of nine decisions.

Rube Waddell debuted with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1900, leading the National League in ERA.

Rube Waddell had worn out his welcome in Pittsburgh by 1901, and his contract was sold to the Chicago Cubs, then managed by Tom Loftus.

When problems led to his suspension, Rube Waddell left the Cubs to pitch for semi-pro teams in northern Illinois, as well as Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Frank Chance and Joe Cantillon then invited Rube Waddell to join a barnstorming team that traveled to California, where he was persuaded to stay and joined the Los Angeles Loo Loos in a league that a year later would become the Pacific Coast League.

Connie Mack, then in Philadelphia, was desperate for pitching; when he learned that Rube Waddell was pitching in California, he dispatched two Pinkerton agents to sneak Rube Waddell back to Philadelphia, where he led the Philadelphia Athletics to the 1902 American League crown.

Rube Waddell was supposed to be pretty good, but we never found out.

Rube Waddell played with various football teams in his later years and had a brief stint as a goalkeeper in the St Louis Soccer League.

Rube Waddell used his newfound stardom as an actor to negotiate a higher wage for his baseball career.

In Eliot Asinof's 1963 account of the 1919 World Series fix Eight Men Out, mention is made of Rube Waddell being bribed not to pitch in the 1905 World Series against the New York Giants.

Rube Waddell followed that season with 349 strikeouts in 1904,110 more than runner-up Jack Chesbro.

Rube Waddell was the opposing pitcher for Cy Young's perfect game on May 5,1904, and hit a flyball for the final out.

Rube Waddell still holds the AL single-season strikeout record by a left-handed pitcher.

Rube Waddell gained more fame for saving the lives of people inside a department store when he picked up a burning oil stove that had overturned and carried it out of the building before it could start a fire.

Related searches

Rube Waddell's drinking problem was exacerbated by a horrific marriage to May Wynne Skinner, his second of three wives, and a series of injuries in 1905 and 1906.

Rube Waddell's intent was to use the article as an advertisement for his desire to find himself another wife.

Ken Burns' later documentary Baseball claimed Rube Waddell had even lost track of how many women he had married.

Schreckengost, a one-time friend who regularly fetched alcohol and fishing poles for Rube Waddell, squabbled with both Rube Waddell and Mack for being treated differently for the same offenses.

Recent commentators such as Bill James have suggested that Rube Waddell suffered from a developmental disability, mental retardation, autism, or attention deficit disorder.

Rube Waddell set the league record for strikeouts in a game with 16 in 1908.

Rube Waddell finished the season pitching with Joe McGinnity for Newark in the Eastern League and never played another major league game.

Rube Waddell enjoyed waving his teammates off the field and then striking out the side.

Rube Waddell actually did so only in exhibition games, since official baseball rules prohibit playing with fewer than nine men on the field in regulation play.

Rube Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Veterans Committee that looked to enshrine a number of players from his era and the previous century who had contributed to the growth of the game.

One of Rube Waddell's contributions was that he was perhaps the greatest drawing card in the first decade of the century, a man whose unique talents and personality drew baseball fans around the country to ballparks.