Rube Waddell: A Real Piece of Work

By: C.G. Morelli

Charles Edward Waddell was a small town Pennsylvania farm boy when minor league scouts recognized his ability to throw lightning. Before long, he’d attracted a nickname (“the Rube”) and he was hurling fastballs in the minors. He found immediate success and, by 1902, he was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform.

In Pittsburgh, however, the Rube found success a little more fleeting. Sure, the kid had great stuff.  But he also had a bit of a strange side to him to say the least. Waddell quickly gained more notoriety for his wild antics than for his ball playing. The man was known to actually leave the playing field during games to chase fire engines, and his unpredictable drinking binges caused him to be chronically and excessively late to games and practices.  Frustrated with his odd behavior, the Pirates cut him loose…and who was there to scoop him up but the old baseball gentleman himself, Connie Mack.

Mack signed Waddell in 1902 to compliment his already burgeoning roster of solid players. Waddell joined the likes of Eddie Plank, Lave Cross, and Nap Lajoie. But the Rube immediately shot to the top of the list, leading the league in strikeouts every year from 1902 through 1907. He led the Athletics in team ERA four times during this span.

For a while, with Mack acting as his surrogate father, Waddell kept his strange behavior at bay, and when he couldn’t restrain himself the citizens of Philadelphia ate him up anyway. Fans especially loved him because he would hang out at local bars in Philly and end up bartending by closing time. He was also known for playing random pickup games in the streets with local kids and for volunteering his services to the fire department.

But eventually, Rube lost his way once more and his erratic, sometimes personally endangering, behavior began to wear on Papa Mack. Waddell was beginning to wear out his welcome. A breaking point appeared to have occurred at the conclusion of the 1905 season. He had led the Athletics to the World Series that year, but couldn’t pitch against the Giants because he’d supposedly injured his elbow in a bizarre incident that culminated in a barroom brawl. It didn’t take long for the public to suspect gamblers were pulling Rube’s strings and rumors began to fly. Nothing was ever proven, but the scandal haunted the Pennsylvania hayseed for the rest of his career.

The scandal, his increasingly flaky attitude towards the game, and his strong taste for drinking, led Mack (who was at the end of his rope) to sell Waddell to the hapless St. Louis Cardinals for $5,000 before the start of the 1908 season. Mack’s Athletics, who had finished a hopeful 2^nd with an 88-57 record the season before, could not recover. Without Rube’s services they skidded through the 1908 season, finishing a pitiful and disappointing 6^th in the American League with a 68-85 record.

Many Philadelphians, who had almost unilaterally exalted the venerable Connie Mack, lost some respect for their beloved manager who, in the end, could not control his wayward “son.”  The city eventually learned to live without their loveable idiot, but it never found anyone unique enough to replace him in their hearts.

The Tall Tactician

By: C.G. Morelli

Connie Mack said a lot of things during his career. Of course, it’s easy to say a lot when your career as manager spans half a century. He once said, “Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses, the whole structure crumbles.  This is as true of baseball teams as any other pursuit in life.” This perhaps recalls the image of the Tall Tactician, a man whose impeccable values and fatherly overtones produced much veneration for him from his arrival in Philadelphia in 1900 until his departure in 1950.

When all was said and done, Mack had compiled 3,731 wins with the Athletics, the most for a manager in baseball history, besting John McGraw by over 1,000 wins. His teams won the World Series five times in that span, and the AL title nine times. Ironically, Mack also racked up 3,948 losses during his tenure as the A’s manager. This total is also, far and away, the worst in baseball history. Mack actually finished in last place 17 times while at the helm of the Athletics. So, I guess it’s fitting that the most successful losing manager of all time would also coin the phrase, “You can’t win ‘em all.”

In fact, even with his staggering total of victories and irreplaceable impact on the game, Mack would humbly tell you that he wasn’t the quintessential baseball skipper. For that title, he’d have to tab one of his contemporaries during the early part of the century.  “There has only ever been one manager,” he said, “And his name is John McGraw.”

But, in Philly, he was more than quintessential. He was the Philadelphia Athletics.

Even after a dismal farewell season in ‘50, where his team finished an embarrassing 52-102 to claim last place for the 10^th time in 16 seasons, he was still considered the man.

After all, we’re talking about the first manager in history to win three World Series titles, and the only manager ever to win the series back to back on two separate occasions (1910-11, 1929-30). Last time I checked, people in Philly don’t forget stuff like that too quickly, which is probably why Mack could walk down the narrowest, most remote alleyway in the city and still be recognized as the father of Philadelphia baseball even by the stray cats.

But it was because of this prominence, this ultimate feeling of comfort which Mack exuded upon the fans, that his departure spelled the beginning of the end for the A’s in Philly.

The loveable fan favorite, Jimmy Dykes, took Mack’s role and improved the team to a 6^th place finish the following season. Even so, attendance plummeted drastically and continued to do so for the next few years. Things just weren’t the same without the Grand Old Man of Baseball staking his post on the dugout steps.

“Any minute, any day, some player may break a long standing record,” he said, “That’s one of the fascinations about the game, the unexpected surprises.”

Perhaps Mack’s departure was one of those unexpected surprises the Philadelphia Athletics were never prepared to face. Or maybe it was the fascination for the game that suddenly left the hearts of the fans and the organization once the venerable leader had fled the battlefield.

Whatever the factor, the A’s would never find a way to recover within the confines of their own backyard. They were sent packing to Kansas City in 1954. Mack died two years later, having spent 66 years in baseball as a player and manager.

After a lifetime of service to the game it’s no wonder Mack once said, “No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball.” Somewhere, I’d like to think, Mr. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy is having a little chat about baseball right now.

Ten Most Important Firsts in Baseball History

C.G. Morelli

When someone takes the initiative to do something new, the result is usually one that leaves a lasting impact.

The game of baseball is no stranger to this statement. It has been witnessing players, coaches, managers, and even fans doing “new” things within the confines of its ballparks for nearly 200 years.

But some of those once rare firsts became much, much more.  They were transformed into permanent fixtures of the game, and their existence has had a hand in literally shaping the sport as we see it today.

Here, we pay tribute to the ten most important firsts in baseball history.  

10. The First Batter to Hit 500 Home Runs

On August 11, 1929 the great Babe Ruth launched a towering home run into the right field stands off of Willis Hudlin of the Indians. He had already been the first player to hit 300, and then 400, homeruns. But this, the 500^th jack of his career, did more than just set a record. It set the bar for all wannabe Hall of Famers in that department.

9. The First Team to Employ Scouts

The quality of play was a little hit or miss for professional baseball in its early days. That is until Aaron Champion, president of the Cincinatti Red Stockings, became determined to find the best talent in the nation for his 1869 team. He compiled a network of unpaid scouts, consisting of old friends, sporting goods salesmen, old coaches, and retired players, who combed the land for baseball gems. The result was a resounding championship victory for the Red Stockings that season and the use of scouts in baseball for the rest of its life span.

8. The First Player to Become Professional

While playing for the Amateur Eckfords, a man by the name of Albert Reach received a peculiar letter. It offered him $25 in expense money to join the Philadelphia Athletics ball club for the 1865 season. Up to this point it was unheard of to receive pay in exchange for play, but once Reach made his news public and proclaimed himself a “professional” in the game of baseball, everyone wanted to be paid to play. It was a long way off, but this paltry $25 contract paved the way for the million dollar versions we see today.

7. The First Player’s Union

Many would point to Marvin Miller, who headed the MLBPA in 1966, as the first leader of a real player’s union. But the first union, known as The Brotherhood, was actually started by John Montgomery Ward and Timothy Keefe back in 1885. The Brotherhood focused mainly on disputes arising from league suspensions and voting, but their work form the foundation and served as a model for future MLBPA successes.

6. The First Pitcher to Throw a Curveball

Some people credit Bobby Matthews, a pitcher with Cincinatti in the 1880’s with 297 career wins, with throwing the world’s first curveball. Some say it was Hall of Famer Candy Cummings who created his version of the curve while tossing clam shells into the ocean on a New England beach. Whoever it was, the introduction of breaking pitches to the game has had a major impact. To give you an idea of just how devastating the curveball and its followers have been, I can only quote an anonymous rookie from baseball lore who once said, “Mom, I’ll be home soon. They started throwing curveballs.”

5. The First Designated Hitter

The idea was first proposed by Connie Mack back in 1905, but didn’t come to fruition until Opening Day 1973, when Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees officially became the first player to ever bat in the lineup as a DH. That paved the way for guys who can’t run or catch to always have a place in the game. Congratulations, Edgar Martinez.

4. The First Cork-Centered Baseball

Before 1910, you’d have a better chance of getting struck by lightning then of seeing a hitter launch a hand-sewn, yarn-centered baseball out of the park. But that all changed with the introduction of the cushion-cork center. Now, when you walk the outfield concourse at any ballpark in the league, it feels like you’ve been caught in a hail storm.

3. The First Game Played at Night

Most people point to a game played in Cincinnati in 1935. But the first game of baseball ever played under artificial lights actually took place in Hull, Massachusetts between two rival department store teams way back in 1880. It’s hard not to recognize the dependence modern baseball has developed on the night game. Sure, day games are great, probably even preferable. But, the MLB brings in the vast majority of it revenue from the wallets of hard-working fans who can’t just skip out of the office every afternoon at 1:35 to catch a game. Simply stated, without night baseball MLB could not operate.

2. The First Modern World Series

Ending a bitter feud, the owners of the National and American leagues agreed to hold the first World Series in 1903 between the Pirates and Red Sox. Boston came back to win the nine game series by swiping the last four games. Cy Young and Bill Dineen contributed legendary pitching performances in the series. But what was more important was the introduction of a true world championship series in the sport and an event that attracted the nation’s interest like none had ever done before it.

1. The First Televised Game

Nothing beats a day at the ballpark, but it’s tough to get out there all the time. That’s the trouble baseball faced before 1939. But on August 26 of that year, WXBS in Brooklyn broadcast the first televised games in professional baseball history. The legendary Red Barber called the doubleheader between the Dodgers and Reds, and the broadcast was a resounding success. It immediately spawned The Game of the Week, which laid the ground work for the multimedia giant MLB is today. Bringing the game into everyone’s living room allowed not only Americans, but fans around the world to enjoy our nation’s pastime.

Rube Waddell: A Real Piece of Work

By: C.G. Morelli

Charles Edward Waddell was a small town Pennsylvania farm boy when minor league scouts recognized his ability to throw lightning. Before long, he’d attracted a nickname (“the Rube”) and he was hurling fastballs in the minors. He found immediate success and, by 1902, he was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform.

In Pittsburgh, however, the Rube found success a little more fleeting. Sure, the kid had great stuff.  But he also had a bit of a strange side to him to say the least. Waddell quickly gained more notoriety for his wild antics than for his ball playing. The man was known to actually leave the playing field during games to chase fire engines, and his unpredictable drinking binges caused him to be chronically and excessively late to games and practices.  Frustrated with his odd behavior, the Pirates cut him loose…and who was there to scoop him up but the old baseball gentleman himself, Connie Mack.

Mack signed Waddell in 1902 to compliment his already burgeoning roster of solid players. Waddell joined the likes of Eddie Plank, Lave Cross, and Nap Lajoie. But the Rube immediately shot to the top of the list, leading the league in strikeouts every year from 1902 through 1907. He led the Athletics in team ERA four times during this span.

For a while, with Mack acting as his surrogate father, Waddell kept his strange behavior at bay, and when he couldn’t restrain himself the citizens of Philadelphia ate him up anyway. Fans especially loved him because he would hang out at local bars in Philly and end up bartending by closing time. He was also known for playing random pickup games in the streets with local kids and for volunteering his services to the fire department.

But eventually, Rube lost his way once more and his erratic, sometimes personally endangering, behavior began to wear on Papa Mack. Waddell was beginning to wear out his welcome. A breaking point appeared to have occurred at the conclusion of the 1905 season. He had led the Athletics to the World Series that year, but couldn’t pitch against the Giants because he’d supposedly injured his elbow in a bizarre incident that culminated in a barroom brawl. It didn’t take long for the public to suspect gamblers were pulling Rube’s strings and rumors began to fly. Nothing was ever proven, but the scandal haunted the Pennsylvania hayseed for the rest of his career.

The scandal, his increasingly flaky attitude towards the game, and his strong taste for drinking, led Mack (who was at the end of his rope) to sell Waddell to the hapless St. Louis Browns for $5,000 before the start of the 1908 season. Mack’s Athletics, who had finished a hopeful 2^nd with an 88-57 record the season before, could not recover. Without Rube’s services they skidded through the 1908 season, finishing a pitiful and disappointing 6^th in the American League with a 68-85 record.

Many Philadelphians, who had almost unilaterally exalted the venerable Connie Mack, lost some respect for their beloved manager who, in the end, could not control his wayward “son.”  The city eventually learned to live without their loveable idiot, but it never found anyone unique enough to replace him in their hearts.

'Lord, Baseball is a Worryin' Thing'

By: C.G. Morelli

As a 14 year old boy breaking his back in the Pennsylvania coal mines for just 60 cents a day, Stan Coveleski sure came a long way. The Polish Prince was such a hard worker and worked such long hours that he once said, “I got to thinking the sun only came out on Sundays.”

But the eventual Hall of Famer wouldn’t be spending much more of his life in the dark. By the time he was 17, Stan had taken a page out of the scripts of his five brothers, four of whom were involved in professional baseball at some level.

Coveleski started playing for a local team in Shamokin, PA and he quickly found his calling as a pitcher with pin point control. That the fresh faced kid they called “Covey” was so accurate on the mound was a surprise to no one. After all, he’d spent every morning of his childhood setting up tin cans on a fence post and systematically knocking them down with the fluid toss of a few stray stones.

“The plate’s a lot bigger than a tin can to throw at,” he said, “When it came to throwing a baseball, why, it was easy to pitch.”

The Polish Prince pitched only five games for the little team from Shamokin. That’s all it took for minor league scouts from the Lancaster club of the Tri State League to notice the kid’s talent. And without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Covey signed a contract that would save him from the inside of a pitch black coal mine forever.

After just two and half seasons with the club from Lancaster, Coveleski was scooped up by Connie Mack, who watched the young rookie make his first major league start in a Philadelphia Athletics uniform in 1912. The result? A three-hit shutout and the youngster’s first-ever victory. But success wouldn’t last long for young Stan.

He endured a few up and down seasons in Philadelphia and became more well known as the brother of “Giant Killer” Harry Coveleski (who had beaten the NY Giants three times in one week during the 1908 season to stifle their attempt at a pennant) than for his own performance on the mound. Stanley found himself bouncing from club to club, even back down to the minors in the Pacific Coast League. But he eventually found a home in Cleveland in 1915, and his time in the PCL would prove to be his greatest asset.

It was during his time in the PCL that Covey first witnessed a pitch that would change his career. It was the spit ball. He began developing his ability to control the pitch, and once he had it mastered, there wasn’t a thing he couldn’t make a baseball do once it left his famous right hand.

From 1915-1928, Coveleski and his devastating spitter were utterly dominant on the mound. He won 216 games, struck out 972 batters, and recorded a lifetime 2.89 ERA.

In 1920, Covey registered one of the greatest World Series performances of all time. He led the Indians to a World Championship by pitching in and winning three games. He allowed the Brooklyn Dodgers only two runs in 27 innings of work and posted a 0.67 World Series ERA, a record that still stands today.

Coveleski endured even after Major League Baseball banned the use of the spitball after the 1920 season. He and 16 other established spitball pitchers were grandfathered in as having permission to continue throwing the pitch. This designation was pivotal in Covey’s career, allowing him to continue his dominance for another eight seasons, five of which he recorded 20 wins or more.

Stan Coveleski was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969 by the veteran’s committee. Even after an illustrious career, he never lost sight of the dark mornings he spent tossing stones at tin cans and enjoying the relative simplicity of a coal miner’s life that contrasted starkly with the every day pressures of playing professional baseball.

“It’s tomorrow that counts (in baseball),” he said after retirement, “So you worry all the time. It never ends. Lord, baseball is a worrying thing.”

The Foxx Who Found His Way

By: C.G. Morelli

Jimmie-

Would you be interested in becoming a professional ball player? If you are, contact me.

Signed,

Frank Baker

It was fitting the Hall of Fame career of slugging first baseman Jimmie Foxx began with this hastily scribbled message on the back of a penny postcard from one home run legend to another in the making.

He was only 16 years old at the time, but the young track star and baseball phenom had at least one notable fan keeping a particularly critical eye on him from the stands at Foxx’s Maryland high school games.

The eye belonged to one Home Run Baker, a former Philly A’s slugger turned Eastern League manager. He knew the young Foxx had the athleticism, the build, and just the right amount of stupidity to make a splash in the bigs. And, boy, could that kid hit the ball a country mile.

Baker quickly received a reply to his postcard and Foxx began, in 1924, a short-lived minor league career under his tutelage. I say short-lived because it lasted just 76 games. That’s all it took for the Foxx to hit .296, mash 10 homers, and draw a lot of interest from teams in the bigs.

Both the Yanks and the A’s became heavy suitors for Foxx after that ’24 campaign. Naturally, Baker steered his young project in the direction of his own mentor, Connie Mack, in Philadelphia.

Foxx spent the tail end of the ’24 season sitting inches from Mack on the bench and learning what the Tall Tactician referred to as the “finer points” of the game. After that, Foxx bounced around the A’s system for the next few years and by1929, at the much more prominent age of 21, “Double X” was finally unveiled as Mack’s everyday first baseman.

The wait would prove to be more than worth it.

The next few years were a blur of statistical achievements for Foxx. From ’29-’31, he and slugger Al Simmons combined for 192 home runs in leading Philly to three straight World Series. He won two MVP awards in consecutive years by smashing 58 homers and driving in 169 runs in ’32, and by earning the Triple Crown in ’33 with 48 taters, 163 RBI, and a .358 batting average. He would hit more than 35 homers and drive in more than 125 runs in each of the next seven seasons with the A’s and Red Sox, and would pick up an unprecedented third MVP award in 1938.

When all was said and done and the sun began to set on a 20 Major League year career, Jimmie Foxx had sent 534 baseballs into the cheap seats (that was 2^nd to only the great Babe Ruth at the time) and maintained a .325 batting average. He was a unanimous selection into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951, just six years after his official retirement.

But all the numbers and accolades and serious home run power aside, Jimmie was just a regular Joe. He was a guy you might see down at the end of the bar after a game sipping a beer, munching on stale peanuts, and mulling over a second match of darts. He was a farmer’s boy from rural Maryland who could probably 3-in-1 a tractor faster than he could round the bases. He was a fresh-faced 16-year-old with a penny postcard from his idol in hand and a slack-jawed, half-amazed look on his face.

And then he was a Hall of Famer.

The Tall Tactician

By: C.G. Morelli

Connie Mack said a lot of things during his career. Of course, it’s easy to say a lot when your career as manager spans half a century. He once said, “Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses, the whole structure crumbles.  This is as true of baseball teams as any other pursuit in life.” This perhaps recalls the image of the Tall Tactician, a man whose impeccable values and fatherly overtones produced much veneration for him from his arrival in Philadelphia in 1900 until his departure in 1950.

When all was said and done, Mack had compiled 3,731 wins with the Athletics, the most for a manager in baseball history, besting John McGraw by over 1,000 wins. His teams won the World Series five times in that span, and the AL title nine times. Ironically, Mack also racked up 3,948 losses during his tenure as the A’s manager. This total is also, far and away, the worst in baseball history. Mack actually finished in last place 17 times while at the helm of the Athletics. So, I guess it’s fitting that the most successful losing manager of all time would also coin the phrase, “You can’t win ‘em all.”

In fact, even with his staggering total of victories and irreplaceable impact on the game, Mack would humbly tell you that he wasn’t the quintessential baseball skipper. For that title, he’d have to tab one of his contemporaries during the early part of the century.  “There has only ever been one manager,” he said, “And his name is John McGraw.”

But, in Philly, he was more than quintessential. He was the Philadelphia Athletics.

Even after a dismal farewell season in ‘50, where his team finished an embarrassing 52-102 to claim last place for the 10^th time in 16 seasons, he was still considered the man.

After all, we’re talking about the first manager in history to win three World Series titles, and the only manager ever to win the series back to back on two separate occasions (1910-11, 1929-30). Last time I checked, people in Philly don’t forget stuff like that too quickly, which is probably why Mack could walk down the narrowest, most remote alleyway in the city and still be recognized as the father of Philadelphia baseball even by the stray cats.

But it was because of this prominence, this ultimate feeling of comfort which Mack exuded upon the fans, that his departure spelled the beginning of the end for the A’s in Philly.

The loveable fan favorite, Jimmy Dykes, took Mack’s role and improved the team to a 6^th place finish the following season. Even so, attendance plummeted drastically and continued to do so for the next few years. Things just weren’t the same without the Grand Old Man of Baseball staking his post on the dugout steps.

“Any minute, any day, some player may break a long standing record,” he said, “That’s one of the fascinations about the game, the unexpected surprises.”

Perhaps Mack’s departure was one of those unexpected surprises the Philadelphia Athletics were never prepared to face. Or maybe it was the fascination for the game that suddenly left the hearts of the fans and the organization once the venerable leader had fled the battlefield.

Whatever the factor, the A’s would never find a way to recover within the confines of their own backyard. They were sent packing to Kansas City in 1954. Mack died two years later, having spent 66 years in baseball as a player and manager.

After a lifetime of service to the game it’s no wonder Mack once said, “No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball.” Somewhere, I’d like to think, Mr. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy is having a little chat about baseball as we speak.