Rube Waddell, Hall of Fame Pitcher



One of the top lefties in history, Rube Waddell was also among the most eccentric and colorful players. In a book entitled, "Baseball Babylon" by Dan Gutman, Rube was characterized as a loon and who lived with a profound Learning Disability that was undiagnosed. Rube, for instance, would be on the mound pitching, when he'd run off the mound to chase a squealing fire truck down the street. He was a simpleton in every sense of the word, but a dominant pitcher of his day nonetheless.

From www.mrbaseball.com written by John Thorn:

George Edward "Rube" Waddell was baseball's most kaleidoscopic character.

In 1903 he began the year sleeping in a firehouse at Camden, New Jersey, and ended it tending bar in Wheeling, West Virginia. “In between those events,” wrote Lee Allen, “he won twenty-two games for the Philadelphia Athletics, played left end for the Business Men's Rugby Football Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan, toured the nation in a melodrama called The Stain of Guilt, courted, married, and separated from May Wynne Skinner of Lynn, Massachusetts, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend through the hand, and was bitten by a lion.”

The stories go on and on about this wild and crazy guy and, remarkably, most of them are true.

- Playing marbles under the stands at game time while his teammates searched for their starting pitcher.

- Being paid his year's salary of $2,200 in one-dollar bills because he was so impulsive a spender.

- Hurling both ends of a doubleheader just so that he could get a few days off to go fishing

- Calling his outfielders to the sidelines, then striking out the batter.

Waddell possessed a great fastball and curve, aided by pinpoint control. Connie Mack harnessed Waddell’s early promise beginning in 1902, his first of four straight 20-win seasons. In 1905, Waddell captured pitching’s “triple crown,” with 27 wins, 287 strikeouts and a 1.48 era, leading the lead in all categories. Known for his strikeout prowess, he led the American League for six years in a row.

Quote
"He had more stuff than any pitcher I ever saw."
— Connie Mack

Did You Know... that on July 1, 1902, Rube Waddell became the first major league pitcher to strike out the side on just nine pitched balls?
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President Warren G. Harding:
Bad Poker Player, Horny Old Toad and Real Shitty President (29th)

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

"After Harding became President he said he knew he could not be the best one, but he wanted to be the best-loved. His father once said to him, "Warren, it's a lucky thing you were not born a girl, because you can't say no."

GOSSIP: Harding reportedly had been having secret affairs with two women, one of them the young mother of his seven-month-old illegitimate daughter, when he was picked as Republican nominee. He also became infamous for hosting liquor-filled poker parties at the White House, despite Prohibition, and was known to sneak out to watch burlesque shows.

( It is also written that Harding used to bet White House china and lose in his late night poker games! He was not much of a poker player ...)

NORMALCY: Harding's inaugural address became famous for its promotion of "normalcy," a word he erroneously used during his campaign. One of his campaign speeches contained the word "normality," which he mispronounced as "normalty" or "normalcy." The latter word (not commonly used, though it appeared in a dictionary in 1857) was reported by the media. Harding liked the term and decided to use it frequently.

HARDING-SPEAK: H.L. Mencken was so enthralled by Harding's choice of words, which he thought was the worst English he'd ever heard, that he called it Gamalielese, after Harding's middle name. As Mencken wrote in his book "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe," in 1956, "It reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights."

TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT: President Harding died three years into his term, just as news of kickbacks and favoritism involving members of his Administration -- including the campaign manager he had appointed attorney general -- were beginning to dirty the water. Several of his closest advisers had already quit, and two committed suicide, under the weight of a variety of corruption charges. The primary disgrace involved the transferral of naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, into private hands by the Secretary of the Interior in exchange for $400,000 in bribes.

HIS MYSTERIOUS DEATH: News of the Teapot Dome scandal began to break as Harding and his wife were returning from a vacation in Alaska. Harding began to show signs of food poisoning and fatigue, developed pneumonia, and died suddenly. His wife, who some speculated had poisoned him, refused to permit an autopsy. The cause of death was said to have been a stroke or heart attack.

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Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

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Norton I, Emperor of United States, and Protector of Mexico

(www.2spare.com)

Joshua Abraham Norton, also known as His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, was a celebrated citizen of San Francisco who proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico" in 1859. Although he had no political power, and his influence extended only so far as he was humored by those around him, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.

Norton also corresponded with Queen Victoria, and he was referred to as His Imperial Majesty by local citizens and in the newspaper obituaries announcing his death.

Though he was generally considered insane, or at least highly eccentric, the citizens of San Francisco (and the world at large) celebrated his presence, his humor, and his deeds—among the most notorious being his "order" that the U.S. Congress be dissolved by force, and his numerous decrees calling for a bridge to be built across San Francisco Bay.

The King in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is reportedly modeled after him.

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DOC ELLIS: THE MAJOR LEAGUE PITCHER
WHO TOSSED A NO-HITTER WHILE ON ACID

http://www.wspsatisfied.com/doc.html




Los Angeles, April 8, 1984- Former Pittsburgh Pirates' pitcher Dock Ellis says he was under the influence of LSD when he pitched a 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres.

Ellis, now co-ordinator of an anti drug program in Los Angeles, said he didn't know until six hours before his June 12, 1970 no hitter that he was going to pitch.

"I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego , but I didn't know it. I had taken LSD..... I thought it was an off-day, that's how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon. At 1pm, his girlfriend and trip partner looked at the paper and said, "Dock, you're pitching today!"

"That's when it was $9.50 to fly to San Diego. She got me to the airport at 3:30. I got there at 4:30, and the game started at 6:05pm. It was a twi-night doubleheader.

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria.

I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times.

The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me."

The Pirates won the game, 2-0, although Ellis walked eight batters. It was the highpoint in the baseball career of one of the finer pitchers of his time, and arguably,one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports.

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Florence Jenkins, the famous Soprano who couldn't sing

(www.2spare.com)

Florence Foster Jenkins (1868) was an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of singing ability. she became tremendously popular in her unconventional way: her audiences apparently loved her for the amusement she provided rather than her musical ability. Jenkins was firmly convinced of her greatness, comparing herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel and Luisa Tetrazzini, and dismissed the laughter which often came from the audience during her performances as coming from her rivals consumed by "professional jealousy".

Jenkins restricted her rare performances to a few favorite venues, and her annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in New York City. Attendance of her recitals was always limited to her loyal clubwomen and a select few others - she handled distribution of the coveted tickets herself. At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall on October 25, 1944. So anticipated was the performance that tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later.

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-Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Awarded $113,500

???

(Stella Awards 2006 - www.stellaawards.com)

Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was Awarded $113,500 to be paid by the restaurant where she slipped on a spilled soft drink and fractured her coccyx (tailbone).

The reason for the spilled soft drink was due to Ms. Carson throwing it at her boyfriend prior to the fall, during an argument. to be paid by the restaurant where she slipped on a spilled soft drink and fractured her coccyx (tailbone).

The reason for the spilled soft drink was due to Ms. Carson throwing it at her boyfriend prior to the fall, during an argument. (theStellaAwards)

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HOWARD HUGHES: When He Was A Crazy Old Coot

(Read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes)



The injuries Howard Hughes sustained in an aircraft crash — including a crushed collar bone, six shattered ribs and numerous third-degree burns — affected him for the rest of his life. Many attribute his long-term addiction to opiates to his use of morphine as a painkiller during his convalescence, during which he developed refinements to his hospital bed. The trademark moustache he wore afterwards was meant to cover a scar on his upper lip resulting from the accident

The aging Howard Hughes moved with his entourage from hotel to hotel and from Beverly Hills to Boston before deciding to move to Las Vegas and become a casino baron. Less than a month after his November 27, 1966 arrival in a railroad car, Hughes made a public offer to buy the Desert Inn. The hotel's eighth floor became the nerve center of his empire, and the ninth floor penthouse became Hughes's personal residence.

Between 1966 and 1968, he also purchased several other hotels/casinos (Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, Sands and Silver Slipper) from the Mafia, transactions which ultimately ended mob control of the city's hotels and casinos. Hughes wanted to change the image of Las Vegas from its mobsters in gaudy silk suits and thousand-dollar-a-night callgirls to a more glamourous image. As Hughes wrote in a memo to an aide: "I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car". A chronic insomniac, Hughes bought several local television stations (including KLAS-TV) so that there would always be something for him to watch in the early hours of the morning.

Hughes' considerable business holdings were overseen by a small panel unofficially dubbed "The Mormon Mafia" on account of the many Latter-day Saints on the committee. In addition to supervising day-to-day business operations and Hughes' health, they also went to great pains to satisfy Hughes' every bizarre whim. Hughes once became fond of Baskin Robbins' banana-nut ice cream, and his aides sought to secure a bulk shipment for him – only to discover that Baskin-Robbins had discontinued the flavor. They put in a request for the smallest amount the company could provide for a special order, 350 gallons, and had it shipped from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of banana-nut and wanted only vanilla ice cream. The Desert Inn ended up distributing free banana-nut ice cream to casino customers for a year, until the 350 gallons were gone.

As an owner of several major businesses in Las Vegas, Hughes wielded enormous political and economic power in Nevada and was often able to influence the outcome of elections. Once he even ordered his aides to offer $1 million each to presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon to stop underground nuclear testing in Nevada (Hughes was afraid of the risk posed by the residual nuclear radiation). His aides never offered the bribes, reporting to Hughes that Johnson declined the offer and they were unable to contact Nixon.

As his health deteriorated due to untreated OCD and abuse of prescription drugs, Hughes moved around to the Bahamas, Vancouver, London, and several other locations, always taking up residence in the top floor penthouse of his hotel. On the pretext of possible assassination attempts and intrusive press photographers, his aides insisted the windows be blacked out. Many hotels in which he stayed were forced to undergo major renovations to repair the damage Hughes caused to the premises.

In 1971, Jean Peters filed for divorce, as she had been married to Hughes since January 12, 1957, but the two had not lived together in many years. Peters requested a lifetime alimony payment of $70,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, and waived all claims to Hughes' estate. The surprised Hughes offered her a settlement of over a million dollars, but she declined it. Hughes did not insist upon a confidentiality agreement from Peters as a condition of the divorce; aides reported that Hughes never spoke ill of Peters. She refused to discuss her life with Hughes and declined several lucrative offers from big-name publishers and biographers. Peters would state only that she had not seen Hughes for several years before their divorce, as his psychological problems forced him to stay in a separate room, talking with her only by phone.

It is said that Howard Hughes spent some years in Managua, Nicaragua. Hughes was living in a hotel near the Managua lake in December 1972, when an earthquake damaged the city.

In 1972, author Clifford Irving created a media sensation when he claimed to have co-written an authorized autobiography of Howard Hughes. Hughes was such a reclusive figure that he did not immediately publicly refute Irving's statement, leading many people to believe Irving's book was a genuine autobiography. Prior to the book's publication, however, Hughes finally denounced Irving in a teleconference, and the entire project was eventually exposed as a hoax. Irving later spent fourteen months in jail.

MORE HOWARD HUGHES

http://drunkreport.com/reports/howardhughes.htm

Nearly three decades after the death of Howard Hughes, the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Aviator," has ignited renewed interest in the eccentric billionaire.

Here, from Pat H. Broeske, coauthor with Peter Harry Brown of the book, "Howard Hughes: The Untold Story," are 10 fascinating facts about the wacky recluse:

1. Determined to learn about flying, the billionaire anonymously applied for and got a job as a baggage handler with American Airlines for $115 per month.

2. In preparation for a 1938 flight, Hughes had thousands of Ping-Pong balls stuffed in a compartment of his plane because he believed it would keep it afloat in water.

During a stop, someone opened the hatch and an avalanche of balls poured out.

3. Bette Davis' husband found out Hughes was having an affair with her and had a private eye make a tape recording of their tryst. Hughes paid $75,000 in hush money.

4. Hughes was obsessed with breasts. He designed a special halfcup bra for Jane Russell during the filming of "The Outlaw" to give the busty starlet a "braless" look. And he instructed drivers to slow to 2 m.p.h. while driving his girlfriends over speed bumps, for fear the sudden jarring could damage the women?s breasts.

5. When dining out, Howard always ordered: steak, potatoes and peas. But he carried a special utensil, which resembled a tiny rake, to remove the littlest peas.

6. Wife Jean Peters decided she couldn't keep a stray cat she took in, so Hughes sent it to an expensive feline hotel where it had a room with a TV. He also had someone write the cat a monthly letter.

7. After learning that he contracted venereal disease from a girlfriend, he ordered all his clothes and bed linens burned in a bonfire at his Los Angeles estate.

8. Hughes and girlfriend Terry Moore liked to exchange alligator mating calls. He played the deep-voiced male, Terry made the female's soft hoot and clicking sound.

9. He became so afraid of germs he wouldn?t let anyone touch the knobs of his TV. Later, he became convinced that the tube emitted germ-filled rays.

10. During his stays at the Desert Inn in Vegas, he made the chef cut each piece of chocolate cake he ordered into an exact square, which he checked with a ruler. If they weren?t square, he sent them back

http://drunkreport.com/reports/howardhughes.htm

The Tycoon liked nothing better than to patrol the sidewalk outside Tiffany in New York City, an envelope tucked beneath his arm. When the moment seemed right, and pedestrian traffic sufficient, Hughes would let loose its contents, sending a spray of jewels (all fake) clattering across the sidewalk. The melee that ensued never ceased to please him.

Bernarr Macfadden: Founded Porno?

(1868-1955), who used his first magazine, Physical Culture, as a vehicle for promulgating his views on carrot eating, cold-water bathing and frequent, vigorous sex. (He was for all three.)

Largely for his fulminations on the last, his racy tabloid, the New York Evening Graphic, which specialized in covering violence and sex, became known as the "PornoGraphic." His legacy is with us even now: it was Macfadden who invented the "composograph" or composite photo, in which the heads of real people in the news are superimposed on the bodies of models posed in compromising positions.

He owned magazines, restaurants, resorts--an empire worth $30 million that critics claimed was built on nothing more than "sex and carrots." At age 45, he met, hired and later married a comely 19-year-old swimming champion with whom he toured Europe in an act whose climax was her jumping from a 7-ft. platform onto his flexed, trampoline-like stomach.

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Ferdinand Demara, the Great Impostor

(www.2spare.com) Ferdinand Waldo Demara (1921-1982), known as "the Great Impostor", masqueraded as many people from monks to surgeons to prison wardens.

He joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and began his new lives by borrowing the name of his army buddy Anthony Ignolia and went AWOL. He then faked his suicide and borrowed another name, Robert Linton French, and became a religiously-oriented psychologist. Both Navy and Army caught him eventually and he served 18 months in prison.

A string of pseudo-academic careers followed. He was, among other things, a civil engineer, a sheriff's deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher. One teaching job led to a six months in prison. He never seemed to get much monetary gain in what he was doing - just temporary respectability.

His most famous exploit was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr about HMCS Cayuga, a Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War. He managed to improvise successful surgeries and fend off infection with generous amounts of penicillin. This worked until the mother of the real Dr. Joseph Cyr found out and reported it.

Demara returned to the U.S., inspired the 1960 film "The Great Imposter", and died on 1982 as a Baptist minister.