Born October 13, 1876, in Bradford, Pennsylvania, was Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher, Rube Waddell. The solidly built left-hander, played for 13 seasons in the Majors, with the Louisville Colonels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Orphans in the National League, as well as the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns in the American League.
Rube was also in 1902 set to play on Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics football team but decided against it. Mack later said, "There was a little fellow from Wanamaker's who asked for the job of quarterback. I don't think he weighed more than 140 [lbs]. Well, the first practice Waddell tackled him and broke his leg. It was the first inkling John [Shibe] and I had that players could be badly hurt in football. We got Rube out of there without delay. He was supposed to be pretty good, but we never found out." Waddell returned to his family's home in Pennsylvania and played with local football clubs there. He played with various football teams in his later years and had a brief stint as a goalkeeper in the St. Louis Soccer League.
