PARTICIPATION IN SCORING ASPECT IS STRICTLY OPTIONAL SO FEEL FREE TO FIND THE CACHE AND WATCH ALL THE ACTION FROM THE GRANDSTAND.
GAME ON!
Welcome to the 2023 Home Run Derby! Every Saturday morning a new cache will be released. After it is published you will have roughly a week to find it and select a slugger to represent you in that week's edition of the home run derby. Select one player and include his name in your log. The number of home runs he hits the following week (starting the Friday after cache publication) is your score; don't worry, we will handle all the scoring.
The series will be cumulative points from April through September with a week off over the All Star break. The "catch" is every player must be unique, so FTF has choice of any player, second to find will have second pick and so on. The cache hiders will also be playing so the cache owner will select fifth each week. A new wrinkle in this year’s scoring system is participants are only allowed to a pick a player once during the season. In all subsequent weeks your pick must be different than any other player you had used in previous weeks.
This is week 19 of the series (19 of 25). All scoring will take place Friday August 11 through Thursday August 17.
George Edward Waddell was a pitcher for the Louisville Colonels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Orphans, the Philadelphia Athletics, and St. Louis Browns. Aside from being one of the most dominant pitchers of his time, he is mostly remembered for his many eccentric behaviors:
- As a three-year old he once wandered off and stayed at a nearby fire station for days. His fascination with fire engines carried on into his adult hood. He often left the mound during games to chase after fire engines.
- Rube would be late for games because he stopped to pet dogs and kittens, or because he was distracted by shiny objects.
- He was easily distracted by opposing fans who held up puppies, which caused him to run over to play with them,
- He once missed a start because he stopped to play marbles with kids outside the stadium.
- He would do cartwheels back to the dugout after striking out the side.
- He claimed not to be able to remember how many women he'd married and was accused by one of his wives of bigamy.
- While employed by a circus, he wrestled alligators in the off season and was once bitten by a lion.
- Rube Waddell was born on Friday the 13th and died, no joke, on April Fool's Day in a sanitarium in Texas.