Rube Waddell led a wild and undisciplined life yet still managed to be one of the true dominant pitchers of his era. His blazing fastball was the best pitch in the league and he led the AL in strikeouts six straight years, once finishing more than 150 ahead of the second place finisher. He drank hard and in retrospect probably suffered from mental illness which went undiagnosed at that time. His behavior was unpredictable which led to a short career but at the turn of the century there was not a better pitcher in the game. Had he been in better control of his life I think this guy gets mentioned in the same breath as Mathewson, Young, and Johnson. He would have been scary to face and I tried to capture that element of unpredictability, if not fear, in the artwork.
George "Rube" Waddell
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