By Scott A. Grant
mail@floridanewsline.com
George E. Waddell, better known as “Rube,” was one of the great characters of early 20th Century baseball. He liked to chase fire trucks and if one drove by the stadium while he was pitching, he might just take off after it and leave everyone wondering what happened. Apparently, he chased the fire engines because he wanted to help and on a number of occasions, he did. They also say that he would become distracted by shiny objects and puppies. Opposing fans were known to bring both to games.
Rube Waddell was also one of the best pitchers of his, or any, era. In 1904, he set a major league strikeout record of 349, 110 more than the second-place finisher. That record lasted until it was broken by Sandy Koufax 61 years later. He led the Philadelphia Athletics to American League pennants in 1902 and again in 1905. He never played in a World Series. In 1902 the American League was only two years old, and no World Series was played. In 1905, the A’s were set to play the National League champion NY Giants when Waddell was injured tussling with a teammate.
Back in those days, men wore straw boaters that they removed after Labor Day. It was a tradition. On Labor Day, you took off your boater and punched your fist through the top and tossed it away. If a man caught another man wearing a straw boater hat after Labor Day, he could grab it and destroy it himself. Well, Rube tried to take his teammate’s hat. His teammate attempted to hide the hat under his coat. A fight ensued. Rube was injured. There were rumors that he had been paid to miss the series by gamblers.
A couple of interesting stories about Rube Waddell that I had read became more interesting when I learned they happened right here in Jacksonville. All of the events happened in the spring of 1903. The Philadelphia Athletics held their spring training in Jacksonville that year. It was the first time a major league club came to Jacksonville since 1888. It would be a dozen or more years before a team would come again.
Waddell got to Florida early. He came to play baseball for Rollins College. Back in those days, Rollins and Stetson had a fierce baseball rivalry. The story goes that Stetson brought in some high-quality players from the University of Illinois to bolster their chances in the big game. William C. Temple, who was on the board of trustees at Rollins and a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, hired Waddell to enroll at Rollins. The Rollins catcher could not handle Waddell’s fastball and was terrified of his curveball. So, Temple added A’s catcher Osse Schreckengost to the roster. Stetson lore says Stetson won a three-game series 2 to 1. Rollins lore says the Stetson players took one look at Waddell warming up and fled back to DeLand.
Rube and Schreck were already in Florida when the A’s arrived for spring training. Jacksonville offered numerous temptations and Waddell went missing on several occasions. That was not unusual; Waddell often left the team to fish and would show up days later often living in a fire station or the back room of a saloon. Rube loved to drink. He once traded a baseball from a game he won over Cy Young to a bar for free drinks. The ploy worked so well that Rube ended up trading a dozen “game balls” to other bars in the area. On another occasion in Chicago, Rube snuck off to the zoo and punched a lion. The lion bit him.
The first time Rube went missing in Jacksonville they found him wrestling an alligator over near the old Ostrich Farm. There are reports of a run in with an emu possibly from the same event. The second time Rube went missing he showed up days later leading a parade down Main Street. There are photos of a big car parade held in Jacksonville in 1903, but that seemed to have happened later in the year.
The third Jacksonville story is the most bizarre of all. Supposedly, Rube and his catcher were sitting on a pier jutting out into the Atlantic, most likely at Atlantic Beach. Waddell, who was despondent after being dumped by a local woman, a brunette, announced his intention to kill himself by jumping into the ocean. Schreck, maybe not taking him seriously, said “do it.” Rube jumped, narrowly missing some sharpened pilings, and then walked out of the ocean, amused some locals by knocking down some boards with a soggy baseball, and then went back out to the end of the pier and jumped off again.
Rube and Schreck ended up dying three months apart in 1914 at the ages of 37 and 39.
Scott A. Grant is a local author and historian. He welcomes your comments at scottg@standfastic.com
