Late pitcher known for wacky tomfoolery

PROSPECT, Pa. (AP) -- Rube Waddell was baseball's biggest drawing card before Babe Ruth, a screwball with an unhittable fastball whose popularity legitimatized the American League and led to the first World Series 100 years ago.
Zany if not always brainy, he sometimes left his club to fight fires or go fishing, only to return to pitch a shutout. He played marbles with school kids outside the ballpark, sometimes while a game was going on. In Philadelphia, the A's were forced to build a bigger ballpark partly because of the crowds he lured.
Always confident in his ability, he ordered his teammates off the field during exhibition games, then would strike out the side.
Despite pitching one season when foul balls didn't count as strikes, his many strikeout records lasted decades until Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan broke them.
His name-calling pitching duels with Cy Young were legendary as his eccentricities were peculiar; he so loved fighting fires he wore red fire fighter's gear under his uniform. Though Waddell was largely forgotten over the years after dying in 1914 at age 37, he was remembered Saturday in the tiny Pennsylvania community of Prospect as being not just larger than life, but greater still in death.
"He was for baseball what Seabiscuit was for racing," said Dan O'Brien, an Indianapolis-based writer who has written a screenplay about Waddell. "The people loved him."
And they turned out to watch him. In the peak years from 1902-1907, he won 131 games -- an average of 21 1/2 a season -- and the A's more than tripled their attendance from 206,329 to 625,581, causing them to open Shibe Park in 1909.
Waddell's life was cut short by an act of bravery during a Kentucky flood, and he was not chosen for the Hall of Fame until 32 years after his death.
Local maker dedicated
On Saturday, a Pennsylvania historical marker was dedicated in his memory in a school yard not far from where he grew up.
"People today don't realize the tremendous impact he had on baseball," O'Brien said. "He combined great pitching talent with terrific eccentricities ... of all the great stars of his time -- Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson -- he was the biggest drawing card in baseball, it's indisputable."
It wasn't just for the wonderful way he pitched, but for his wackiness.
He wrestled alligators in Florida, was bitten by a lion, fought fires in almost every city he visited -- he saved several lives -- and was barred from eating Animal Crackers in bed under a contract provision insisted upon by Ossie Schreckengost, his catcher and roommate.
At the time, teammates shared not just a room but a bed on the road, and Schreckengost wearied of waking up with cookie crumbs all over him.
Apparently, his women tired of his oddities, too; he was married three times during a time when divorce was uncommon.
On-the-field history
Waddell was under contract to the Pittsburgh Pirates at the turn of the century, but disliked Hall of Fame manager Fred Clarke's disciplinarian ways and jumped the club.
The Athletics of the rival American League, then a fledging outfit looked down upon by the NL for its player-raiding tactics, signed him in 1902.
A's owner-manager Connie Mack found him pitching for a town team in Punxsutawney, Pa. There, Mack was greeted by a mob of fans eager not to see Waddell stay but to go; it seemed he owed money all over town.
In Philadelphia, Waddell was a smash hit, going 24-7 with 210 strikeouts despite missing the first 2 1/2 months of the 1902 season. Turning cartwheels on the field to celebrate victories, he drew such big crowds that he hastened the AL's acceptance and the NL agreed to play the first World Series -- between the Pirates and the Boston Pilgrims (Red Sox) -- in 1903.
"He was almost unhittable at his peak," said Alan Levy, a Slippery Rock University professor who wrote a book called Rube Waddell, The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist. "Mack called him the greatest pitcher he ever saw."
Waddell's fastball might not have been as fast as Walter Johnson's but, like Koufax, he combined it with a drop-off-the-table curveball.
Fittingly, his record of 349 strikeouts in 1904 (110 more than runner-up Jack Chesbro) stood until Koufax struck out 382 in 1965.
Died after fighting flood
The left-handed Waddell hurt his pitching arm while wrestling with teammate Andy Coakley before the 1905 World Series and never was the same, even though he won 64 games over the next four seasons with the A's and Browns.
He was back in the minors by 1910 and, while staying at his club owner's house in 1912, stood in icy water for days helping pile sandbags during a Kentucky flood. He came down with pneumonia and, within two years, was dead of tuberculosis.
Coincidentally or not, he was born on Friday the 13th and died on April Fool's Day.
"There was a lot written about him that wasn't true and a lot he did that wasn't written about," O'Brien said. "If there was something outlandish he didn't do, it was only because he didn't think of it."