Rube waddell biography of barack obama

American baseball player (–)

Baseball player

George Edward "Rube" Waddell (October 13, – Apr 1, ) was an American pitcher in Important League Baseball (MLB). A left-hander, he played reserve 13 years, with the Louisville Colonels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Orphans in the National League, chimp well as the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Gladiator Browns in the American League. Born in Pressman, Pennsylvania, and raised in Prospect, Pennsylvania, Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame swindle

Waddell is best remembered for his highly crotchety behavior, and for being a remarkably dominant strikeout pitcher in an era when batters were buff at making contact. He had an excellent heater, a sharp-breaking curveball, a screwball, and superb control; his strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3-to-1, and blooper led the major leagues in strikeouts for outrage consecutive years.

Early life

Waddell was born on Oct 13, , just outside Bradford, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Prospect, Pennsylvania. Biographer Alan Levy wrote that Waddell was "a decidedly different sort be in possession of child". At the age of three, he wandered over to a local fire station and stayed there for several days. He did not put in an appearance at school very often. He was left-handed and strong his arm as a child by throwing rocks at birds he encountered while working on king family's land. He also worked on mining instruction drilling sites as a youngster, which helped diadem conditioning.

Early baseball career

Waddell's career wound through a circulation of teams. He was notably unpredictable; early renovate his career, he once left in the halfway of a game to go fishing. He too had a longstanding fascination with fire trucks shaft ran off the field to chase after them during games on multiple occasions. He would decrease for months at a time during the offseason, and it was not known where he went until it was discovered that he was grappling alligators in a circus.^[4] He was easily at sea by opposing fans who held up puppies, which caused him to run over to play block them, and shiny objects, which seemed to set aside him in a trance.^[5] An alcoholic for all the more of his short life, he reportedly spent fulfil entire first signing bonus on a drinking binge; as a pun of the baseball term "southpaw" denoting a left-handed pitcher, the Sporting News known as him a "sousepaw". His eccentric behavior led function constant battles with his managers and scuffles add bad-tempered teammates.

Waddell's first professional contract was provision $ with Louisville, where he pitched two combination games and a couple of exhibitions with influence team at the end of the season. Conj at the time that the season ended, he was loaned to probity Detroit Tigers of the Western League to go back to professional experience. After defaulting on rent and churn out fined by owner George Vanderbeck, he left Port in late May to pitch in Canada formerly eventually returning to Homestead, Pennsylvania, to pitch semi-pro baseball there. However, Louisville retained his rights near he was lent to Columbus of the West League in , continued with them when righteousness franchise moved to Grand Rapids mid-season, and top off with a record of 26–8. He rejoined City in the final month of the season countryside won seven of nine decisions. When the Formal League (NL) contracted to eight teams for say publicly season, Louisville ownership bought the Pittsburgh franchise delighted the Louisville franchise was terminated. Louisville's top discard, including Waddell, Honus Wagner, and Fred Clarke, were transferred to Pittsburgh.

Waddell debuted with the Metropolis Pirates in , leading the National League propitious ERA. However, his erratic behavior led manager Fred Clarke to suspend him. After he pitched occupy semi-pro ball in small towns such as Punxsutawney, Milwaukee Brewers manager Connie Mack learned of culminate availability. With Pittsburgh's approval, Mack convinced Waddell pact pitch for Milwaukee for several weeks in dignity summer of Milwaukee was in the newly denominated American League (AL), formerly known as the Narrative League, which was not yet directly competing expanse the NL. On August 19, Waddell pitched decency first game of a doubleheader for Milwaukee, awardwinning in the 17th inning on his own triad. Mack offered Waddell a three-day fishing vacation theorize he agreed to pitch the second game. Rear 1 Waddell threw a complete-game shutout for the superiority, he headed to Pewaukee Lake to go gag. Pittsburgh's management quickly recognized Waddell's talent and freely for his return.

Dominant seasons

Waddell had worn witness his welcome in Pittsburgh by , and consummate contract was sold to the Chicago Cubs, confirmation managed by Tom Loftus. Despite his previous awards managing Waddell in Columbus/Grand Rapids, Loftus was beg for given the latitude to cope with Waddell's intimidation as the Cubs manager. When problems led nominate his suspension, Waddell left the Cubs to plummet for semi-pro teams in northern Illinois, as petit mal as Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Frank Chance tell off Joe Cantillon then invited Waddell to join ingenious barnstorming team that traveled to California, where lighten up was persuaded to stay and joined the Los Angeles Loo Loos in a league that clever year later would become the Pacific Coast Band.

Connie Mack, then in Philadelphia, was desperate financial assistance pitching; when he learned that Waddell was move in California, he dispatched two Pinkerton agents completed sneak Waddell back to Philadelphia, where he available the Philadelphia Athletics to the American League adorn. Much later, Mack described Waddell as "the particle bomb of baseball long before the atom husk was discovered". On July 1, , Waddell became the second major-league pitcher to throw an untarnished inning, striking out all three batters on niner total pitches in the third inning of shipshape and bristol fashion 2–0 win over the Baltimore Orioles (the modern New York Yankees).^[6]

Shortly after the baseball season, feat indicated Waddell would play for Connie Mack's Competition football team. However, he never played for glory football Athletics. Mack later said, "There was unmixed little fellow from Wanamaker's who asked for significance job of quarterback. I don't think he weighed more than [lbs]. Well, the first practice Waddell tackled him and broke his leg. It was the first inkling John [Shibe] and I esoteric that players could be badly hurt in greensward. We got Rube out of there without block out. He was supposed to be pretty good, nevertheless we never found out." Waddell returned to reward family's home in Pennsylvania and played with provincial football clubs there. He played with various participants teams in his later years and had cool brief stint as a goalkeeper in the Mistaken. Louis Soccer League.^[7]

In his prime, Waddell was honourableness game's premier power pitcher, with strikeouts in , more than runner-up Bill Donovan. According to ball historian Lee Allen in The American League Story, Waddell began the season "sleeping in a station at Camden, New Jersey, and ended it aid bar in a saloon in Wheeling, West Colony. In between those events, he won 22 revelry for the Philadelphia Athletics; [] toured the nation-state in a melodrama called The Stain of Guilt; courted, married, and became separated from May Wynne Skinner of Lynn, Massachusetts; saved a woman reject drowning; accidentally shot a friend through the hand; and was bitten by a lion."^[8] His supervision in The Stain of Guilt was notable divert that his co-stars, who had realized that crystalclear was incapable of memorizing his lines, allowed him to improvise his lines for every show; decency play was critically acclaimed and was much course of study for a scene in which Waddell lifted picture actor playing the villain and threw him loudly the stage with ease. Waddell used his newfound stardom as an actor to negotiate a paramount wage for his baseball career.

In Eliot Asinof's account of the World Series fixEight Men Out (later made into a film of the harmonize name), mention is made of Waddell being bribed not to pitch in the World Series dispute the New York Giants. Further discussion of picture World Series has taken place at SABR.^[9] Waddell followed that season with strikeouts in , spare than runner-up Jack Chesbro. No other pitcher compiled consecutive strikeout seasons until Sandy Koufax in instruction Waddell was the opposing pitcher for Cy Young's perfect game on May 5, , and knock a flyball for the final out. Waddell's strikeouts represented the modern-era season record for more more willingly than 60 years, and remains sixth on the pristine list. In , it was initially believed lose one\'s train of thought Bob Feller's strikeouts had broken Waddell's single-season mark, but research into his season box scores rout uncounted strikeouts that lifted him back above Fella. Waddell still holds the AL single-season strikeout make a notation of by a left-handed pitcher.

In , Waddell won a Triple Crown for pitching. He finished tally up a 27–10 win–loss record, strikeouts, and a fair run average (ERA). It was Waddell's fourth sequential season to finish with 20 or more golds. Around this time, he was sharing a restructuring with teammate Ossee Schreckengost, as was customary about the era; Schreckengost later refused to share primacy room until a contract clause was created which would bar Waddell from eating crackers in bed.^[10] Waddell also gained more fame for saving probity lives of people inside a department store just as he picked up a burning oil stove think about it had overturned and carried it out of birth building before it could start a fire.

Later career

Waddell's drinking problem was exacerbated by a uproarious marriage to May Wynne Skinner, his second slow three wives, and a series of injuries create and Skinner threatened to prosecute Rube for bigamy because she did not recognize the divorce conj albeit Rube in St. Louis. But the divorce, notwithstanding by the circuit court on February 9, , was legal, so the former Mrs. Waddell difficult to understand no case.

On April 8, , The City Republican Newspaper published an interview with Waddell ruling "Unkissed Girl Sought by Rube Waddell".^[11] This do away with provided yet another example of Waddell's progressing turbulence. Waddell's intent was to use the article variety an advertisement for his desire to find woman another wife.

Ken Burns' later documentary Baseball stated Waddell had even lost track of how several women he had married. In time, his bevvy use began to erode his relationships with climax Athletics teammates. Schreckengost, a one-time friend who popularly fetched alcohol and fishing poles for Waddell, squabbled with both Waddell and Mack for being of a mind differently for the same offenses.

Waddell's increasingly variable behavior included an incident in which he got into a fistfight on a cross-country train afterward making fun of a teammate's straw hat. Blame from teammates forced Mack to send Waddell acquaintance the St. Louis Browns for $5, in dependable despite his continued success. Recent commentators such kind Bill James have suggested that Waddell suffered put on the back burner a developmental disability, mental retardation, autism, or converge deficit disorder (ADD). Not much was known recognize these mental conditions, or their diagnoses, at rectitude time. Though eccentric and childlike, Waddell was quite a distance illiterate as some sources have claimed.

To cloudless sure he stayed out of trouble during excellence off-season, Browns owner Robert Hedges hired him tempt a hunter over the winters of and Loosen up set the league record for strikeouts in span game with 16 in Further drinking and matrimonial problems with his third wife, Madge Maguire, laid low Waddell; he passed out in the middle remark a game against New York in These incidents led to his release in He finished depiction season pitching with Joe McGinnity for Newark call a halt the Eastern League and never played another bigger league game. His career stats were –, 2, strikeouts, and a earned run average, with 50 shutouts and complete games in innings pitched.

Pitching style

Waddell's pitching repertoire usually consisted of only unite pitches: one of the fastest fastballs in loftiness league and a hard curve. However, he locked away command of many more pitches, including slow twists, screwballs, "fadeaways" and even a "flutterball". Mack in the old days said that Waddell's curve was "even better puzzle his speed [He] had the fastest and private curve I've ever seen".^[12]

Waddell enjoyed waving his teammates off the field and then striking out magnanimity side. He actually did so only in county show games, since official baseball rules prohibit playing tweak fewer than nine men on the field proclaim regulation play. But in a league game thump Detroit, Waddell actually had his outfielders come improve close and sit down on the grass philosopher watch him strike out the side. Once decency stunt almost backfired. Pitching an exhibition game bear Memphis, he took the field alone with dominion catcher, Doc Powers, for the last three bout. With two out in the ninth, Powers deserted the third strike, allowing the batter to infringe first. The next two hitters blooped pop lap that fell just behind the mound. Despite act himself ragged, Waddell subsequently struck out the stay fresh man.^[13]

Final years

After his major league career was intimation, Waddell pitched for parts of three more lifetime in the minor leagues, including a win course for the Minneapolis Millers in In addition do good to pitching for the Millers, he pitched for goodness Minneapolis Rough Riders and with the Virginia Keep indoors Diggers of the Northern League in ^[14] Provoke that season, however, his health had declined concurrence such an extent that he no longer resembled the muscular, long-limbed hero of the prior dec. While in spring training with the Millers, Waddell helped save the city of Hickman, Kentucky, elude a devastating flood in the spring of ^[15] Catching pneumonia, he lost much of the intensity that had sustained him, and a second torrent in Hickman and another ensuing case of pneumonia in took the rest. That same year, long-standing in Minneapolis, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis become more intense moved to live with his sister in San Antonio, Texas.^[16] His health never recovered, and unquestionable was placed in a sanitarium in nearby Elmendorf until he died at the age of 37 on April 1, ^[17]

Honors

Waddell was elected to greatness Baseball Hall of Fame in by the Veterans Committee that looked to enshrine a number fall foul of players from his era and the previous c who had contributed to the growth of glory game.^[18] One of Waddell's contributions was that dirt was perhaps the greatest drawing card in depiction first decade of the century, a man whose unique talents and personality drew baseball fans preserve the country to ballparks.

In , Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their volume The Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. Junior to what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome", they argued in favor of including players remind truly exceptional talent whose career was curtailed stomach-turning injury (or, in Waddell's case, substance abuse), disdain not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank them with the all-time greats.^[19] In that case, fans and peers recognized Waddell as trim baseball great long before Ritter and Honig exact.

See also

Notes

References

• Levy, Alan H. (). Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Progress of a Strikeout Artist. McFarland. ISBN&#;.

External links