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.

Three Finger Brown

By: C.G. Morelli

Mordecai Brown was visiting his uncle’s farm in Indiana when he was given the greatest gift he would ever receive. At the time, however, it didn’t seem like much of a gift at all. 

It was the summer of 1884 and Mordecai, only seven years old, was busy playing outside, when something happened that would completely change the course of his life. He stepped too close to a feed machine and accidentally caught his hand on the blade.  Before anything could be done, Mordecai lost most of his index finger and parts of his thumb and middle finger. It seemed like a painful burden he’d have to carry with him forever. It would later transform him into one of the greatest major league pitchers of all time.

From Weakness Comes Strength

By the time he was 20 years old, Brown was busy working in the Indiana coal mines and playing for the company baseball team on weekends. He was known as a hard worker, but only as an average third baseman whose hand gave him trouble both in the field and at the plate. Because of his childhood accident, people saw Brown as handicapped and never gave him much attention for playing the game. That is, until the regular pitcher on his company team suffered a minor injury of his own. Suddenly, Brown found himself staring opportunity right in the face. Before he knew it, he was on the mound gripping the ball tightly between his three fingers. It took him just one pitch to realize the gift he’d been given, and to know that he’d never play third base again.

“That old paw served me pretty well in its time,” Brown once said of his injured hand.  “It gave me a firmer grip on the ball, so I could spin it over the hump. It gave me a greater dip.”

Although Brown lacked a powerful fastball, his three-fingered grip allowed him to throw a variety of curves and breaking pitches that left batters speechless. Many experts credit him with throwing the very first split-finger fastball.

Three Finger Brown

After winning 50 games for his company team over the next two seasons, Brown signed a professional contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Some of his major league teammates started calling him “Miner” Brown, because of his experiences in the coal mines, but most others referred to him simply as “Three Finger” Brown.

After only one season with St. Louis, Three Finger was traded to the Cubs. It was in Chicago where he shined. Brown became one of the few players in baseball history to pitch simultaneously both as a starter and a reliever, notching 239 wins and 48 saves in his career. He did this while posting a 2.06 ERA, and while winning 20 games six years in a row (1904-1910). Three Finger Brown eventually propelled the Cubs to a World Series Championship with a game six shutout of the Detroit Tigers in 1908.  It was the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

A Hall of Fame Battle

Three Finger Brown is perhaps best known for his legendary battles with another Hall of Fame pitcher of the time. Christy Mathewson, perhaps the most dominating pitcher in history with 373 wins and over 2,500 strikeouts, spent almost his entire career playing for the New York Giants. He was tall and lanky, and seemed to have the ability to shoot bolts of lightning from his gifted right arm. 

From 1905 to 1909, “Matty” and Three Finger faced each other a total of ten times.  Mathewson won the first meeting, out dueling Brown to a 1-0 shutout, but Three Finger went on to win the next nine meetings between the two all-time greats. In 1916, Mordecai Brown faced Christy Mathewson one last time. It was fitting that both men were pitching the final games of their legendary careers. Matty took this one, 10-8.

The Gift of Inspiration

Much of Brown’s impact as a player stems from the amazing feats he was able to accomplish on the mound, but his greatest achievement took place when he was still a young child. It was when he overcame his frightening injury and found a way to use it to benefit not only him, but the great game of baseball as well.

“I haven't space enough to tell of all the grand deeds of Brownie on and off the field,” Hall of Fame teammate Johnny Evers once said.  “(He had) Plenty of nerve, ability and willingness to work at all times and under any conditions…There was never a finer character -- charitable and friendly to his foes and ever willing to help a youngster breaking in."