Rube Waddell: King of the Hall of Flakes

You just got a raise to $12.50 a week so you decide to splurge and shell out a dollar to sit in the grandstand behind home plate. You know youre in for a treat. Rube Waddell the most exciting twirler in baseball will be in the pitchers box. It turns out youve wasted your money. The phenom doesnt pitch. In fact hes not even in the stadium. You later learn that he chose to play sandlot ball with some kids he passed on his walk from the hotel to the ballpark. Youre delighted the next time you go to see him and Rube takes the mound. Hes a bit late so you ask the booster sitting beside you what might have been the holdup. He tells you that Rube often soaks his pitching arm in cold water before the game to take some of the speed out of it otherwise Rube says his shoots will burn up the catchers mitt. He is absolutely overpowering. You wonder why hitters even bother going up to the plate. Is there anything he cant do out there? you ask the cranks around you. A man with a red handlebar moustache says Ya. Rube cant throw at batters to keep them off the plate like other twirlers do. Hes afraid of killing somebody. And he refuses to throw spitters. Says it aint sanitary.