I just finished the second in the nine disc series of Ken Burns “Baseball” documentary last night. I have seen the entire thing before, but that was some ten years ago, and I figured it was worth a re-watch now that some time has passed.
Anyways, the second disc covered 1900-1910, and contained some incredibly interesting stuff. The one character from this era that fascinated me more than Cobb, Mathewson, Johnson, and others, was Rube Waddell.
I had heard his name before, but never really paid much attention to who he really was, and I definitely had no idea what he was really about beyond baseball. Turns out I had been missing out on quite a bit, as in addition to being an unbelievable pitcher, it seems that ol’ Rube was also quite a character.
Waddell was odd and unpredictable, including a bad habit of leaving the dugout in the middle of games to follow passing fire trucks to fires, and performed as an alligator wrestler in the off season. He was an alcoholic for much of his adult life, reportedly spending the entirety of his first signing bonus on a drinking binge. (more)
and…
Playing marbles under the stands at game time while his teammates searched for their starting pitcher; being paid his year’s salary of $2,200 in one-dollar bills because he was so impulsive a spender; hurling both ends of a doubleheader just so that he could get a few days off to go fishing; calling his outfielders to the sidelines, then striking out the batter.
and it goes on…
In his six years in Philadelphia, Rube married four times. Although the…the second of his wives, left him after only three weeks of marriage, and he did spend some time in jail for throwing flatirons at each of his in-laws, this man-child had a good heart. On more than one occasion his penchant for running after fire engines led him to rush into a burning building to effect a rescue. And his premature death, at age 37 in 1914 (on April Fool’s Day) resulted from a severe cold he contracted after standing for hours in icy waters up to his armpits, placing sandbags in advance of rising waters from a broken dam. (more)
The chasing fire-trucks bit is priceless. I may have to pick this book up for a winter time read.