According to some, Rube Waddell was the greatest pitcher to ever play the game. In 1904, he struck out 345 batters, during a time when hitters choked up on the bat, just trying to make contact with two strikes. Rube was also the first great drawing card. Because of him, new stadiums were built in Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Boston. The author, Alan H. Levy, says, "He was among the game's first real drawing cards, among its first honest-to-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."

Rube was also one of the game's all-time greatest "characters". He would call his infielders into the dugout and strike out the side. He would do handstands and cartwheels after a victory. He would make animal noises while pitching. Unfortunately, he would also get into bar fights, drink too much, and disappear on a whim.
Eventually, Rube's manager, Connie Mack, got tired of Rube's unreliability and shipped him off to the St. Louis Browns, where he lasted two mores years before being banished to the minors. He pitched for the Minneapolis Millers for two years after that, hoping to be noticed by a major league team. It never happened.

The Millers trained in Hickman, Kentucky, which was plagued by floods. Always the fireman, Rube pitched in, sandbagging alongside black laborers (Quite the no-no in those days). He contracted pneumonia and was told to move to a warmer climate. Dropped by the Millers, Rube played for a team in Virginia, Minnesota, his skills increasingly abandoning him. Rube refused to take care of himself and he eventually wound up being arrested as a vagrant in St. Louis and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He spent his last days in a sanitarium in Texas, his weight dropping to a hundred pounds. When some major leaguers who were in Texas for spring training came to see him he said, "I'll be over tomorrow and show you bums how to run. My weight is down to fighting trim now. I'm in shape."

Rube was married three times, during a time when divorce was almost unheard of, his last spouse leaving him because, "Rube's just too crazy."

Alan H. Levy is a history professor at Slippery Rock. I think he relied too much on newspaper accounts and not enough on interviews (albeit they're hard to find after almost a hundred years). He does quote from Connie Mack and Mugsy McGraw's biographies, but none of these characters really come to life, not even Rube. Rube's three wives are practically invisible. I also had a hard time with Levy's somnolent final chapter, possibly because the main point of interest was already dead.  

Dave Schwinghammer unconvential mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available at Amazon.com, new and used.