The Origin of Weird: Rube Waddell

Late Drop And Quick Apology

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Oh hey there.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Oh hey there.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I am well. Go Bradley. I'm Kate. This is the origin of weird. By the history buffoons. Uh we had a little bit of a scheduling conflict, so this is uh Whoopsie Daisy so uh day late. Our apologies, and uh that's okay. Our bad. Well, life happens, right? Yeah. It's not our fault.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I have one.

The Pitch Caught In A Shirt

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, you have a life too. Yeah. I got two little lives. Vesper and Xavier. Yeah, it was a busy week, so so it goes. What do you got that's weird for us today? On the origin of weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

A baseball pitcher.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Pitcher. Yes. Did you see the clip the other day? Um, this guy, I don't remember what the teams were that were playing. A pitcher threw a pitch, guy hit it directly at the pitcher. Came off his bat, I think they said at uh 107.8 miles per hour. He caught it in a shirt. He caught it in the shirt? It went right through the buttons and everything, and he caught it in a shirt. Whoa! It was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Do you think he's got bruises?

Meet Rube Waddell

SPEAKER_01 1:29

I don't I don't know if it like ricocheted off his stomach or anything, but I so he was like sitting sideways, like did it come through and he was, you know, how they get in their motion and everything and they land, and then he stood up and it went right into his shirt. Anyways. Baseball pitcher, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah. Um, we're gonna talk about George Edward Waddell.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Waddell?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Or I'm gonna call him. Everybody calls him Rube.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Rube. What year? Rube Waddell. What year did Rube? No, was this in the Major Leagues pitcher?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

He was yes, he was in the major leagues. Yeah. So we're talking late 1800s, early 1900s.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Is this the guy who created the curveball?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

No, not that no, I didn't read that. Okay. Yeah. He had a curveball.

Farm Boy To Strikeout Machine

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Right. But I don't remember what year it was, and I pissed that I don't remember the name of the pitcher, but it was like late 1800s. Okay. And pretty much pitchers back then always just um you start a game, you finish it. It wasn't like all the relief pitchers like we have today, no pitch counts, nothing like that. And it was just throw the ball as fast as you can over the plate. Right. And this one guy, I'll have to look this up because now it's irritating me. I don't remember his name. But he learned that like if he held it a certain way, yeah, holy shit, it just dropped. Yeah. And everyone was just like, that's legal, you know, because people fear change. But it wasn't. But um, and then of course, like he like drastically changed the way baseball was played because now it's not just get it over to play, wish for your best. Because you know, people get over. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So so Rube Waddell was born Friday, October 5th, 13th. Friday, October the 13th. Oh dear. In 1876 in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Okay. He grew up on a farm where he developed his pitching arm by throwing rocks at birds to keep them away from the crops.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Oh. So he was like the family scarecrow?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Just more mobile.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Mobile. More alive. I have all right. Anyway. Wow. By the time he was a young adult, he had a fastball that was pretty fucking overwhelming for hitters.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

He ended up at a small college college where he barely attended class.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Because he was just there to play baseball?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

He yeah, he wanted to play baseball.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

It sounds like sports players today, they barely go to class because they're there for sports. Yeah. Because it's a money-making business.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

He struck out hitters constantly. Okay. And he could control games by himself. Sure. Um, there was even a point where a rival town reportedly kidnapped him. Okay. I read once that it was at gunpoint, and I read another time where they just kind of strong armed him.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

So you're coming with us.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Pretty much. They said, We're you're not pitching against us, you're gonna pitch for us. And he did. He went through with it. He's like, he don't care. He's just here to play.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Do you pay the same?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

So once he reached the majors um uh from the early 1900s, he led the league in strikeouts year after year. In 1904, he racked up 349 strikeouts. Holy crap. Mm-hmm. And it was a number that stood for decades until uh for left-handed pitchers, which he was.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Oh, he was a southpaw? Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Until Sandy Koufax. Great fucking ball player from the 50s and 60s eventually passed it.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

He was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Um that's a question I was just gonna ask about Rube. You said 394 strikeouts that year, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Three 349.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Oh, 49. My dyslexia kicked in. Dyslexia? Um did it say how many games he played?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

No.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

No. Okay. Continue.

Fire Trucks Over Baseball

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So his career ERA Which is stands for Earned Runs Average. Yeah. Um, it sits sits among the best in baseball history. Wow. Um, his numbers would hold up against other legends. So on paper, he's one of like the more dominant pitchers of his era. Sure. But uh Rube was weird. Well, I mean he was weird. Rube. He was a little obsessed with fire trucks. You saw that coming, didn't you? Saw it coming.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

How old how old was this pitcher?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

No, he um, I think he got to the major leagues just before he turned 21.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Oh wow, that's pretty young though. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Um, but as a kid, he would wander off and end up sleeping in fire stations. Um, if a fire truck went by during a game that he was at, there was a legitimate chance that he would just leave the game to go after the fire truck.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

What the fuck? Why?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Um, I think he wanted to help.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I would be your backup.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

He's like so.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Can I be your Dalmatian?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

At times he would wear like a red shirt under his uniform so that he could strip down quickly and jump into action if needed. Oh my god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

So he's a great baseball player, but yeah, apparently his passion was firefighting. Firefighting. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Um, there are accounts of him him leaving games mid-play to go help the fires. At one point during a game, a mattress, which I'm not really sure why it was there, but a mattress behind home plate caught fire. Likely from someone smoking in the stands, and while everyone else was reacting like normal humans, he grabbed it, dragged it onto the field, and just handled it there. Well, like it was part of his job description. Naturally. He also had this instinct to help people even when it didn't quite go according to plan.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

At one point he jumped off of a ferry in the Del Delaware River to rescue what he thought was a drowning woman. He swam out fully committed, only to realize that he risked his life for a floating log. Still E for effort.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Did he did he keep the log? Should have carved it into something. Maybe a bat.

Bears Geese And Dugout Chaos

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And then Rube loved animals. Okay. Um, he owned multiple bears. Bears? Yep. There weren't really rules about wild animals back then. In the Ought Force. Give or take. He had dogs and pigs and a flock of geese that he reportedly trained how to jump rope, and that was never disproven.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Was it also ever proven? Okay. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

But it wasn't disproven either.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

We'll take your word, Rube. What the fuck? Why would you want a jump roping geese? Flock a geese.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So I looked this up and I was like, please explain this.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Um, but on Wikipedia it says something along the lines of one time there was a geese that couldn't jump rope, so he just gave him the rope. And so he the duck held the rope, or the geese or whatever held the rope for him.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Um opposing teams learned real quickly that if you wanted to distract Rube, you didn't need any strategy. You needed a puppy. Or a fire truck.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

What would happen if a puppy was on a fire truck?

unknown 9:10

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Fucking double whammy.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Fans would hold up dogs in the stands, and Rube would completely lose focus and wander over and try to interact with the dogs.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So is this like the original take your dog uh bark at the park, they call it? What the fuck? Hold on, guys. There's a puppy over there. Oh, you're so cute. I mean, what the shit? I mean, I like dogs too, but damn.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So on the mound, he would actually some c sometimes call off his outfielders, like say, you don't need to come out here because I'm just gonna strike everyone out.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Oh, but that's not how the game works. But okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Well, in the 1900s, we were I mean, I guess. Um sometimes that happened. He stroke everybody out, and sometimes it did not.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

So did he have to go running for the ball then?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I mean kind of, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

That means if I was the man what team did he play for? Did you ever get there?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I do. Um his manager was Connie Mack. Cornelius.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

The name sounds familiar. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Cornelius McGillis or so. Cornelius McGillicuddy. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So what team?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Um he jumped around a little bit, um, but I'll I'll I'll list him at the end. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Because like, if I was that manager, hey uh him hey hey, Skip. Rube just said we don't need to go out there, I'd be like, get your fucking ass out there. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Rube is not the manager.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

No, exactly. And that's my point is like, um Rube doesn't tell you what to do, I tell you what to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

But he would also like ignore the catcher, so there would be wild pitches and missed signals and the chaos because they wouldn't listen to the catcher. Of course. Um, he made animal noises at hitters, he would change his delivery. I'm not sure what kind of delivery, like mid-game. He would do cartwheels off the mound. Did he play for the Savannah Bananas? My next line literally says it's the late 1800s version of the Savannah Bananas. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

That's literally what I wrote in. Oh man, I still want to go see them. If they ever come to town and the prices aren't ridiculous, we should go see them.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

The waiting list is super long.

Milwaukee And Pewaukee Lake Fishing

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, I know, which sucks.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Okay, so now we're in the middle of all this, and Rube actually had a brief connection to Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Oh, how so?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Um, he played for a little bit on the Milwaukee Brewers, who were a minor league at the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

We had a minor league team called the Milwaukee Brewers.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I mean, that's what I said.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Are you sure? Are you sure that's right? It's what I wrote. Doesn't mean it's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Was it supposed to be the Braves?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

The Milwaukee Braves was the major league team.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So, yeah, this was a minor league team at the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

In like the 50s. So that that's well before or well after Rube would have been.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Maybe I made that up.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I I feel like we're gonna fact check this.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So around 1900, 1901, Milwaukee had a team called the Brewers in the American League. In 1901, the league became a major league. That specific Brewers team then moved to St. Louis and became the Browns.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Oh yeah, they played at Borchirk Field.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, so he was a Brewer.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

I I never knew we had a minor league team in the early 1900s to call them one. I've never heard that before. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah. So also Yes. He liked he really loved playing in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Okay. Because there's lots of puppies.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

No. Because there was a lake that he would frequent to go fishing. He became attached to Pewkey Lake.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Hey, that's where I'm from. I know. I swam in that lake where Rube used to fish.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

That's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I was researching this guy not knowing the Wisconsin connection. Yeah. And I was like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

That's kind of cool. Yeah. Really? Yeah. That's so fucking weird.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

So um that lake actually started becoming a little bit interfering with his career. Okay. Um, he would disappear for days at a time. No one knew where he was, no way to reach him, and the team would just have to wait for him. And eventually someone would figure out that he was on Pewkey Lake fishing, completely unbothered by the fact that he was supposed to be pitching in professional baseball games.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

That's crazy. That is so weird.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

There was even a situation where he joined a local team because they offered him a deal that allowed him to fish six days a week.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

All right, here's the deal. You play one day, you sick, fish six. Fish six. Sign me up. That's funny. Wow.

Connie Mack Tries To Contain Him

SPEAKER_00 14:14

He would have like long stretches on the water, completely checked out from anything else, no concern for consequences. Um, and this is where Connie Matt comes in. Um, his manager. Yeah. He had to get creative uh to keep Rube engaged.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

At one point, he made him, quote, captain of the balls, which it meant that he had to hand out baseballs and chase them down.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Sure did. So he was like a professional uh ball boy in a way for the team, like, but on the team at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

So we would keep him on the field, and um sometimes it worked, and sometimes he would still leave.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

At what point does Connie Mac or any other person in this league go, We should maybe move on?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

They do. They it eventually they move on.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Of course, but do you think one person is just like, but skip? He throws a lot of strikeouts or fastballs or whatever you want to say. It's like that's just fucking weird.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

So Rube would miss practices constantly, disappearing during road trips, show up late or not at all. Um, there was a story where a team scheduled a game expecting thousands of fans to show up just to see Rube pitch, and he didn't show. Not because he forgot, though, because he went to the wrong stadium. He's wandering around like, where is everybody?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Well, I'm here. I'll just throw. I'll just collect some balls.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Um, he did have a habit of getting into fights, uh, sometimes with fans, sometimes with other players. Um, he once vaulted into the stand and grabbed a Heckler mid-game, shook him, and then calmly returned to the mountain pitch like nothing had happened.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

What the fuck?

Flood Heroics Then A Fast Decline

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Um, yes. Um, but unfortunately Rube also drank heavily. Oh dear. It was part of his reputation. Um, and fans would chant about it during games. His managers would try to intervene, sometimes in bizarre ways, but there was um a few moments in his personal life where uh violence in relationships started happening. Okay, but later in life, he became became a little bit more heroic.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Um, living near the Mississippi River, um, a town faced severe flooding, and he worked for days helping build up levees and um sandbagging without rush, rest, pushing himself far beyond what was considered safe. Sure. Um, but after that, he actually did develop pneumonia and tuberculosis, and his health declined pretty rapidly.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

And he died at just 37 years old.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Oh wow. He did all that nonsense in 37 years old.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

And died at 37 years old. He died. April Fool's Day, April 1st, 1914.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Maybe. Maybe cheer me out here. Maybe he really didn't die. He just told everyone he did, and he went fishing.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Um Rube Waddell was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Oh, was he really? So he's actually in the Hall of Fame? He is, yeah. Wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So for the National League, he started off with the Louisville um colonels.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Colonels, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Then he went on to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a year.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

And then the Chicago Orphans for a year, 1901.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Then they took the train out of there.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Weird.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Um, then he was on the American League on the Philadelphia Athletics from 1902 to 1907.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Do you know who who they are now?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Athletics.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

That's the team moving to Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Vegas, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, because they moved out to Oakland and now they're they're homeless currently until their stadium is built in Vegas, but that's the team that's moving there.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Um, and then from 1908 to 1910, he was um the St. Louis Browns.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

And then um he had a very short stint um as a Detroit Tiger in 1910.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Oh wow. So what year did he die? Did you say that? 1914. 1914. Was the Detroit Tigers the last team that he played for? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Well, the last major league anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Right, yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah, so Rube Waddell, crazy, crazy kooky guy.

Teams Legacy And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Rube Waddell. Can honestly say I never heard of him. Kind of like the fact that he used to fish on the lake that I grew up on. That's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

And he was a brewer.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

He was technically a brewer. That I I never knew we had a minor league team in the early 1900s called that.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Now I'm kind of I like our team name, but now I'm like, oh, way to get creative, Bud Seagull. Seal Sealeg. Wow, I almost said Seagull.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Sea leg.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

He was the guy who brought the brewers to Wisconsin. He also was the baseball commissioner for a really long time. And then he let his daughter run the team, and then she did a really good job at running it into the ground. Uh-oh. And make us not competitive for a long time. And then uh they finally sold the team to Mark Antanazio, and now we're consistently a I'll say a good team. But man, I really just want to fucking win a World Series.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah.

unknown 19:35

Someday.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I hope before I die.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

So clocks ticking, brewers. Well, I suppose. Alright, buffoons, that's it for today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also email us at history buffoonspodcast at gmail.com. We are Bradley and Kate, music by Corey Akers.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

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SPEAKER_01 20:16

Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Remember, the buffoonery never stops.