George Edward Waddell (October 13, 1876 - April 1, 1914) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. In his thirteen-year career he played for the Louisville Colonels (1897, 1899), Pittsburgh Pirates (1900-01) and Chicago Orphans (1901) in the National League, and the Philadelphia Athletics (1902-07) and St. Louis Browns (1908-10) in the American League. Waddell earned the nickname "Rube" because he was a big, fresh kid. The term was commonly used to refer to hayseeds or farmboys. He was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Waddell had an excellent fastball, a sharp-breaking curve, a screwball and superb control (his strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3-to-1). However, his eccentric behavior led to constant battles with his managers and scuffles with bad tempered teammates. In his career, Waddell had a record of 193-143, 2316 strikeouts, and a 2.16 earned run average, with 50 shutouts and 261 complete games in 2961 innings pitched.

Waddell was immortalized in the classic baseball book, The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter .

Rube Waddell died in San Antonio, Texas at 37 years of age. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.

Quotation

• "He was among the game's first real drawing cards, among its first honest-to-goodness celebrities, and the first player to have teams of newspaper reporters following him, and the first to have a mass following of idol-worshiping kids yelling out his nickname like he was their buddy." --Alan Howard Levy, in his book Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist.

Highlights

• Won Triple Crown (1905: 27-10, 287, 1.48)
• 4-time 20-game winner (24, 21, 25, 27: 1902-05)
• Six consecutive strikeout titles (1902-07)
• Set league record for strikeouts in a game (16, 1908)
• Set record for strikeouts in a season (349, 1904)
• First pitcher to strike out the side on just nine pitched balls (July 2, 1902)

External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame
• Page at Baseball Library