History Mystery

Kenosha News reporter Diane Giles shares her knowledge of Kenosha with a little bit of history.

Question: Who was the Cooperstown Hall of Fame pitcher who played on a Kenosha baseball team and on a Kenosha football team in 1901?

Answer: His name was George Edward “Rube” Waddell, and his 27 days as a Kenosha resident had locals cheering in the stands that fall.

They called him erratic, eccentric and one of the best lefthanders baseball has ever seen.

He wrestled alligators in Florida, liked to eat animal crackers in bed — which infuriated his team roommates because they shared beds when on the road — and loved to drink, earning the nickname “the sousepaw” from The Sporting News publication.

He was born George Edward Waddell and said he learned to pitch by throwing stones at flying crows.
Waddell debuted in the major leagues on the mound for the Louisville Colonels on Sept. 8, 1897, when he was 20 years old. His reputation for trouble began soon after his debut.

In May of 1901 he had his contract sold to the Chicago Orphans (who became the Cubs in 1903), and Waddell’s antics earned him a suspension for the last month of the season.

So he joined up with the Kenosha Athletics and took the mound on his birthday, Oct. 13. In that game, he walked only one batter and struck out 16 for a seven-hit win. Waddell told the Kenosha News that he was moving into Kenosha to stay and expected to be the team’s.

Waddell got a job tending the bar at the Hotel Grant on the northeast corner of Main Street and Wisconsin Avenue (Sixth Avenue and 58th Street). According to a Kenosha News story, “It was common to see him hobnobbing behind the bar, pouring out beer and ‘setting ’em up’ with an apron over his uniform — spiked shoes and all!”

The next weekend in the championship game he struck out the first nine men, then 10 more and gave up only five hits, but the team lost the game on errors.

On Oct. 27, Waddell was again in a Kenosha Athletic uniform, but this one had pads and a helmet. The baseball season had ended and the football season had begun. For this natural athlete, the shape of the ball made no difference: Waddell scored one of the touchdowns.

But Waddell’s promises were about as solid as the Pike River in April. He skipped town and signed on with a semi-pro football team in Racine.

In the spring of 1902, Connie Mack offered him a contract to play with the other Athletics — the Philadelphia Athletics. It was the start of Rube’s glory years. Waddell led the American League in strikeouts for six consecutive years. Between 1902 and 1908 there was only one season (1906) that he had fewer than 200 strikeouts in a season. And he had at least 300 strikeouts each season in 1903 and 1904.

At the peak of his game, Waddell was the major league’s power pitcher. In 1903, Waddell had 302 strikeouts, way ahead of runner-up Bill Donovan, who had 187 strike outs. It was no fluke. He came back the next year with 349 strikeouts, 110 more than runner-up Jack Chesbro.

No other pitcher would record two consecutive 300-strikeout seasons until Sandy Koufax in 1965 and 1966. In 1905, Waddell led the American League in wins, strikeouts and earned run average.

He pitched his final major league game in a St. Louis Browns uniform on August 1, 1910. Waddell died on April 1, 1914, in San Antonio, Texas, at the age of 37. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. In his book “Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist,” Alan Howard Levy wrote: “He was among the game’s first real drawing cards, among its first honestto-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.”

History Mystery appears Tuesdays in the Kenosha News. To contact Diane Giles, a Kenosha News reporter and local historian, click here, or mail her items at 5800 Seventh Ave., Kenosha, WI 53140.