W. G. Braund

Rube Waddell: King of the Hall of Flakes W. G. Braund

You just got a raise to $12.50 a week so you decide to splurge and shell out a dollar to sit in the grandstand behind home plate. You know you're in for a treat. Rube Waddell, the most exciting twirler in baseball, will be in the pitcher's box. It turns out you've wasted your money. The phenom doesn't pitch. In fact, he's not even in the stadium. You later learn that he chose to play sandlot ball with some kids he passed on his walk from the hotel to the ballpark. You're delighted the next time you go to see him and Rube takes the mound. He's a bit late so you ask the booster sitting beside you what might have been the holdup. He tells you that Rube often soaks his pitching arm in cold water before the game to take some of the speed out of it, otherwise Rube says his shoots will burn up the catcher's mitt. He is absolutely overpowering. You wonder why hitters even bother going up to the plate. "Is there anything he can't do out there?" you ask the cranks around you. A man with a red handlebar moustache says, "Ya. Rube can't throw at batters to keep them off the plate like other twirlers do. He's afraid of killing somebody. And he refuses to throw spitters. Says it ain't sanitary."