The Sunday Funnies

Rube Waddell was drunk -- not that that condition was all that unusual for the great lefty fireballer -- when he insisted to his teammates that he could fly. Stepping out of his hotel window with his arms flapping, he found himself waking up the next day in a hospital.

When one of his teammates explained how Rube had wound up there, Waddell was indignant. "I coulda been killed! Why didn't you stop me?"

"What?" replied his buddy. "And lose the hundred I had bet on you?"

The Sunday Funnies

Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Waddell, as many of his contemporaries did after washing out of the majors, continued to pitch in the minors. He was pitching for the Minneapolis Millers, a high level minor league team, and the Millers were about to play a crucial series against Toledo.

Manager Joe Cantillon told Waddell: "You've gotta lay off the liquor for the next four days. You'll be going against Earl Yingling (Toledo's ace) at least once and maybe twice, and I want you at your best."

But when the series began on Monday afternoon, neither Waddell nor Yingling showed at the Minneapolis ballpark. Nor did they appear on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

On Friday, after Toledo had left town, Waddell walked in with a stringer of fish, which he presented to Cantillon with the explanation that he had tkaen care of Yingling by having the Toledo ace accompany him on a four-day fishing excursion on Lake Minnetonka.

A week later, Cantillon received a bill from a local market -- a bill for the fish Waddell had purchased on the previous Friday.