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THE STRAW HAT
Today’s story is about bribery, a possibly-faked shoulder injury, and an unsolved baseball mystery.
Rube Waddell was an eccentric and talented pitcher who played for the Philadelphia Athletics during the early 1900s.
He’s been the subject of some pretty gnarly rumors over the years - one of them being that he was bribed to sit out the 1905 World Series.
While there is no conclusive evidence to support this theory, it remains a subject of debate among baseball historians.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame even staged a mock trial around the incident in 2008.
In order to make your own judgement, it’s important to understand Rube Waddell.
Waddell was a key player on the Athletics team that won the American League pennant in 1905.
The man was an animal.
In 1904, he threw over 380 innings and struck out 349 hitters - which remained a post-1900 record until Sandy Koufax broke it in 1965.
But Rube was a liability off the field.
He was known for his unpredictable behavior and antics, which were usually fueled by alcohol.
One time he showed up to Connie Mack’s hotel door at one in the morning offering his manager a “pazzazza” sandwich - which is made with limburger cheese and stale onions.
Gif by curbyourenthusiasm on Giphy
Mack closed the door in his face.
Despite his shortcomings, Rube was a big part of the A’s success in 1905, which makes this whole thing really strange.
On September 8th, Waddell started against the Red Sox and was removed from the game after the second inning.
It was unclear if he removed himself from the game or if it was a call that Mack made, but after being taken out, Rube went to sit in the stands instead of the dugout with his teammates.
Keep in mind, it was incredibly rare for Waddell to be taken out at all, let alone in the third inning.
Sometimes he would throw two complete games back to back.
On September 10th, Charles Dryden of the Philadelphia North American, reported that Rube had been injured.
Apparently, Waddell and his teammate Andy Coakley got into a fight at a train station over Coakley’s straw hat.
Waddell hurt his shoulder during the fight and was unable to pitch for the rest of the month.
It seems out of character for someone that was known to be fiercely competitive on the mound and took great pride in being one of the best at his craft.
After several weeks went by, even Rube’s own teammates were questioning his motives.
Ultimately, Waddell did pitch three games after the 8th, but he didn’t do very well in any of them, and decided to sit out the World Series.
In 1920, a reporter named Horace Fogel said that he had knowledge of Rube being bribed with $17,000 (over 5x his annual salary) by gamblers to sit out the World Series, but Rube was no longer alive to defend himself.
The Athletics lost the series to the Giants in 1905, and Rube Waddell was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1946.
THE FALL CLASSIC
There’s only five teams who have never won the World Series: The Brewers, Mariners, Padres, Rays, and Rockies.
Sorry if that struck a chord for any of you.
My point is, most of our teams have been World Champions at least once, and our friends at Homage like to celebrate winners.
Here’s a few of the tees they’ve got in the World Series collection:
Quick Links:
Oh, and tonight, everything is 20% off.
STRANGE NAMES
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
This is about as bad as nicknames get.
Charles “Pussy” Tebeau had one of the shortest careers of all time in the big leagues, just two games.
But it wasn’t because he was bad, the guy hit .500.
In 1895, Tebeau was playing in the New England Association when the league disbanded, so he quickly inked a deal with Portland who played in the New England League.
However, despite that agreement, Charles hopped on a train to Cleveland and joined the Spiders for a series against Washington.
The manager of Portland, unaware of Tebeau's whereabouts, was pretty surprised to see his name in the newspapers playing in the National League.
In response, he filed a grievance, and as a result, the Spiders were forced to release Tebeau.
The next year, he was back with Portland, but he got beaned during an exhibition game before the start of the season.
He was knocked unconscious for 15 minutes and spent two weeks in the hospital - he never played organized baseball again.
THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE
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