I'm an avid fan of baseball, and as much as I love the strategy of the game, I'm even more enamored with it's rich history of glorious achievements and colorful characters. One of my favorite characters from baseball lore is the legendary turn-of-the-century (Okay, turn-of-last-century) pitcher, Rube Waddell.
Rube pitched for Louisville, Chicago and Philadelphia in the Senior Circuit, and moved to the American League when it began, pitching for their Philadelphia franchise, as well as the old St. Louis Browns. In 13 major league seasons he won 193 games, and finished with a career ERA of 2.16.
Rube was, to say the least, eccentric. In fact, many historians now believed he was mentally handicapped. Great stuff on the mound, a welcome presence in any team's rotation, but he also took quirky to a whole new level. The ballparks in his day were build within the confines of crowded city streets, and when the horse-drawn fire departments happened to race by the ballpark, Rube's teammates knew they had to pour out of the dugout and literally tackle their fine hurler,
or he'd bolt from the mound, tear out of the park, and chase the fire department through the city streets. Who knows what Rube would've done had he caught them? Opposing teams soon figured out they could break the pitcher's concentration and distract him on a nice sunny day just by catching the sun rays with their watch, and flashing the reflection his way. He would literally stop pitching and freeze, staring into their dugouts at the strange and perplexing light.
Obviously, all the high jinx weren't enough to stop him from having a fine career. In fact, the Veterans Committee saw fit to put him into the Baseball Hall Of Fame back in 1946. How could you not love a guy like this?It's silly, of course, for a a grown man being distracted by the glint of sunshine off of someone else's watch is, or the idea of that same man abandoning his post every time he heard the clanging bells of a 1900's fire wagon roaring by. No doubt, the historians are on to something, and all was not right with our illustrious hero.
It's a refreshing story though, in times like these. The economy, partisan bickering, the haves and the have nots, we're stressed to the max and at each other's throats. Our 401-K's disappearing before our eyes and people see themselves ruined overnight, while the media pursues pop singers and Hollywood actors like they were Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII, and we hang on every word that drips out of their mouths.
Business people sell out their partners for a bigger share of the pie, husbands leave wives (and wives leave husbands) to deal with mid-life crisises, teenage girls get knocked up "proving their love" to dimwitted boys who wouldn't know what love was if it slapped them silly. We exhaust ourselves and add to our fame pursuing financial wealth, political power, fame, expensive toys, sexual conquests, socail status, designer wardrobes and countless other things that have one thing in common - they'll all end up on the garbage heap one day. Temporary, worthless things - things that will never live up to the promise they make, the promise to somehow fulfill us.
This isn't what it's all about. 'Can't be. This isn't the American Dream (in fact, it's the stuff most of our founding fathers risked and often lost to pursue the real American Dream - but that's another story). This is an illusion, a distraction, a lie. There's got to be more to life than chasing this stuff down. Hey, I'm not pessimistic. I don't think life is pointless. I relish it. I just think it's easy to get off track and chase stuff that doesn't last - that doesn't matter. I think we need to put more thought into the logical conclusion of the things we pursue, the things we do with our lives. Otherwise, we might discover that Rube Waddell wasn't so bizarre at all. Maybe he is us and we are him - pointlessly chasing fire engines down the street and staring off into a beam of sunshine!
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