Rube Waddell Weighs In On The Steroid Issue

It's been ninet-- hey, do you got any Gin? How 'bout some scotch? Just pour it into this cup here. Lookit it, how shiny she is. Where's your glass? What? Nah, c'mon - you gotta have a pull or three. There ya go. Atta boy.

Now where were - that's right, the steroids. Well I'll be greener than grass in a churchyard, I can't see how these boys put that shit in their bodies. Ain't got no respect for themselves. I remember I was facing Cap Anson, that pretty boy sonuvabitch, and he was crowdin' that plate somethin' fierce, so I's puts one right up in his nostrils, and he yells at me, he yells 'Rube, you no-good head-huntin' drunk, you so much as graze the wool on my ass and I'll come out there and beat you like the rotten sour dog that you are.' I got 'im, though. That big curve ball. He weren't a could touch that thing.

Like I said, it's been ninety-seven years or so since I was on that mound. Feeling that ball in my hand. Just ... winding up like a cat lookin' to pounce, the fans' eyes on ya, through ya, and eight other men on yer side, and it's just a wave of everything all through ya, in through the mouth, and down and rumblin' in yer stomach and just kickin' to shit all that you got to be a man, just twirlin' ya's up like a barber pole, just turnin' and turnin' and turnin'...

What? Aww hell, I ain't cryin'. Got some dirt in my eye. You gonna fill this up or am I gonna hafta find Billy Martin and squeeze it outta him? There it is.

Then ... sure, these boys. How much do they make now? Really? That much, huh? For one year? Well I'll be damned. And they still gotta go and ruin it. Got all the damn money in the world, you could just buy a damn island in the South Specific and just go there, frolic with the monkeys, couldn't ya? How many coconuts does a couple million smackaroos buy? Well why dontcha? It buys a whole damn lot of 'em, that's for sure.

Me, I made $800 in ought-two. I never even saw most of it. They had to give half of it to my wife, and I got dollar bills here and there. Hell, they bought me pocket chains and moonshine. I didn't mind too much one way or the other.

Let's bring out the big boys. Got any Jack Daniel's? Any Old Crow? Hell, you could serve me some paint thinner and turpentine and I'd be grateful like a whore in prison. What's that? Ice? Son, the nice part of me wants to pat ya on the head, but the ballplayer in me wants to stomp yer testes with my spikes. Don't need no ice here, myboy. Make it neat.

Speakin' of, do these boys put 'ice' in these steroids? Thin 'em out some? They don't, huh. Well, fuck 'em anyway. Fuck 'em right in the ass where they's stickin' those pills.

I believe it was 1907 when I w-- now just what in tarnation is that Gawd-awful racket? What? That's what a fire truck sounds like nowadays? Son of a bitch - I see it! Glossy and red! Fire truck! Fire truck! FIRE TRUCK FIRE TRUCK FIRE TRUCK!

[runs out door]