Rube Waddell

George Edward “Rube” Waddell was one of the zaniest characters ever to play baseball. The legendary Connie Mack, who saw quite a few cards during his nearly seven decade stint in the majors, once observed that no other screwball he ever saw could hold a candle to Rube. Mack also said that Rube’s curveball was the best he’d ever seen. Indeed, Waddell was one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game. Rube won 191 games in 13 seasons, had four straight 20-win seasons for Mack and the Philadelphia A’s, and claimed six consecutive strikeout titles. In 1904 he struck out 349 batters, a record that held for six decades. This biography traces his early life in western Pennsylvania, the fits and starts of his first years in professional baseball, his big years with the A’s, and his subsequent fade into obscurity and his early death in a sanatorium on April Fool’s Day, 1914.

Longtime baseball fan Alan H. Levy is a professor of American history at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Joe McCarthy (2005), Tackling Jim Crow (2003) and several books on American music, including a biography of the noted composer Edward MacDowell.

Alan H. Levy
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 327
Bibliographic Info: photos, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2000
pISBN: 978-0-7864-0786-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8112-5
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments iv
Pregame 1
1. Throwing Rocks at the Crows 9
2. A Cup of Coffee and Off to College 15
3. Wake Up, Mr. Clarke, I’m Here 21
4. A Second Cup of Coffee 23
5. Tiger Rube 27
6. The Senator from Ohio 33
7. The Prodigal 36
8. My New Kentucky Home 42
9. Back Home 45
10. Punxsutawney Rube 55
11. Beer Town 59
12. Back to the Burgh 64
13. That Poor Pig 69
14. World Series 71
15. Get Him the Hell Off My Ball Team 73
16. Life in the Big City 78
17. The Theater Type 81
18. Last Place 83
19. The Great Mathewson 87
20. A Big Toad 90
21. Loo-Loo Land 94
22. The Planets Shrink in Fear 102
23. Goodbye, John McGraw 106
24. A Blaze to Glory 109
25. If He Does That Again, I’ll… 123
26. Animal Crackers 129
27. A Rocky Start 131
28. Summer of Chaos 136
29. Unhand That Woman! 150
30. Coon Hunts and Straight Baseball 152
31. The Cy Young Series 156
32. Mardi Gras 162
33. When the Breaks Fall Your Way 165
34. Cy Young Again 169
35. Pennant Drive 176
36. A Fatal Straw Hat 179
37. Usual Spring High Jinks 187
38. Bum Thumb 191
39. Hitless Wonders 198
40. Mule Fritters 207
41. Turkish Bath 211
42. Oh, That Ty Cobb! 219
43. Divorce, Rube Style 228
44. McAleer’s Gamble 232
45. Rube’s Gonna Pitch 238
46. He Who Laughs Last 241
47. The Browns in a Pennant Race 245
48. Winter Games 251
49. Disappointment and Pathos 254
50. A Fateful Day in Boston 262
51. New Jersey 268
52. The Minors 271
53. Rube on the Mississippi 275
54. Minnesota Rube 278
55. Levees and Whiskey 285
56. Floods 290
57. The Crease in His Nose 296
Postgame 300
Rube Waddell’s Lifetime Statistics 312
Bibliography 313
Index 319

• “A most compelling, valuable addition”—Nine
• “The saga of the A’s star hurler of the early 1900s”—USA Today Sports Weekly
• “This is the study of a man and his times”—Today’s Librarian