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Paul Proia is the author of a book titled, Just a Big Kid: The Life and Times of Rube Waddell. He is also the publisher of the great baseball blog MightyCaseyBaseball. We are very grateful that Paul was able to join us on Baseballisms.com to share his experiences and wisdom from the diamond.
The intention of Baseballisms.com is to capture personal stories from fans of the game, so initially the conversation is about Paul’s experience in crafting the biography and the great discoveries he made about baseball as he was conducting his research.
Paul was driven by the fact that he loves to write, loves to read baseball books, and had the desire to present a player who has not been overly chronicled. This is certainly not a story that appears in every baseball fans’ library. An interesting player caught his attention by the name of Rube Waddell, a lefthanded pitcher who played between 1897 and 1910.
As Paul explains, Waddell not only had the credentials including leading the league in strikeouts for six consecutive years, but also personality issues that contributed many colorful anecdotes to his book.
An interesting aspect about Paul’s journey in bringing this book to life, at a time when much of the research was conducted via micro film viewing in libraries, is that he witnessed an evolution in newspapers, sports writing, and could place Rube Waddell within an exact time period in our overall global history. Paul believes that the beat writers of the day weren’t so eager to break a news story, however they were not as willing to look the other way as some sports historians might lead you to believe.
Rube’s story must also include his alcoholism and his developmental disabilities that may have included many undiagnosed disorders. Disorders which probably would have prevented him from playing baseball, and contributing to society in general, had he been born during more modern times.
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