hope everyone had a nice opening day. i spent the day re-reading the wikipedia entry for rube waddell, my favorite player of all time.

i am crying laughing

rube waddell had to sign a contract promising not to eat crackers in bed

worth noting that the only reason we know about rube waddell is that he was so good he would routinely *wave his teammates off the field* and then strike out the side

rube waddell's life was so wild that wikipedia just tosses off these kinds of facts with no follow-up

picture this: you're rube waddell's manager. rube shows up at your hotel at 1am offering you a pazzazza sandwich. wyd?

this baseball magazine article from 1917 describes a single night in which rube:
- snuck backstage at a play and fired a gun 40 times
- got attacked by a lion after "insulting" it (?)
- told the police his injuries were from fighting off "highwaymen," was declared a hero

(those screenshots are taken from a great article by @Just_Mckinney about the rube waddell lion biting incident: https://medium.com/@BaseballObscura/that-time-baseball-hall-of-famer-rube-waddell-got-bitten-by-a-lion-7de00416f73d)

rube waddell died as he lived: smoking a pipe, whispering "hello you dutchman" with his final breaths. he was born on october 13, 1876 (friday the 13th) and died on april 1, 1907 (april fool's day). i love him.

whoops my bad, he died april 1, 1914. please accept these photos of rube as an apology

i'm so sorry i really thought i was done, but then i found this story in which rube tried to "hypnotize a walrus into submissiveness." the walrus ripped rube's pants off and then beat the shit out of him.