Background
George "Nap" Rucker was born in Crabapple, in the Georgia piedmont, the son of John Rucker, a farmer, and Sara Hembree.
George "Nap" Rucker was born in Crabapple, in the Georgia piedmont, the son of John Rucker, a farmer, and Sara Hembree.
Rucker attended the community's elementary school, completing its eight grades.
Then, while learning the printing trade, Rucker turned to baseball and became the pitcher for the local Crabapple team, which played against neighboring communities north of Atlanta. Rucker was left-handed but would upset opponents by occasionally pitching right-handed. (He batted right-handed throughout his career. ) Success in these games earned him a tryout at the age of twenty with the professional team in Atlanta.
He was cut from the Crackers in spring training, but in September 1904 the Atlanta team signed him when injuries depleted its pitching staff. He first played professionally on September 2, 1904, winning a decision in relief against Birmingham. His real debut came three days later, when 5, 000 fans watched him lose to Nashville, 8-2. The Atlanta manager then sent him back to his father's farm in Crabapple.
The next year, Rucker joined Augusta's South Atlantic League team, for which he pitched two seasons, winning forty games and losing twenty. He earned $125 a month during the season. Although he pitched well and was supported by the future major-league players Ty Cobb, Eddie Cicotte, and Ducky Holmes, Augusta regularly finished last in its league.
Nonetheless, his record attracted the attention of the Brooklyn team, officially called the Superbas but known as the Dodgers, who signed him in 1907 at a salary of $1, 900 for the season. In his rookie year, Rucker quickly established himself as the best left-handed pitcher in the big leagues, with an outstanding fast ball and a crackling curve. After an injury, he altered his pitching form, and the resulting pitches were, according to one reporter, "the widest curves and slowest balls in the history of the majors. "
Arm trouble forced him to retire at thirty-one. Several years later he discovered that some of his difficulties resulted from tooth and tonsil infections. He later told reporters he would have lasted longer if he had played in an era when teams had trainers and doctors. During Rucker's years in the National League, the Dodgers were a rather weak team. His career record--134 wins and 134 losses--reflects the poor fielding and poor hitting of his teammates more than it does his pitching. Because he refused to give up any game, Rucker was well liked by his teammates and coaches. Chief Meyers and others regarded him as one of the most underrated players of the pre-World War I era.
Casey Stengel credited Rucker with keeping him in baseball when he was having a rough stretch with the Dodgers. Rucker had some outstanding seasons, despite the weakness of the Dodgers. In the 1911 season he had twenty-two wins; in 1912 he won eighteen games; and in both 1908 and 1910 he won seventeen. He pitched a perfect game, striking out fourteen, against the Boston Braves in 1908 and had a remarkable thirty-eight shutouts during his major-league career. Rucker always declared that his sixteen strikeouts against the Cardinals in 1909 was his greatest performance as a pitcher. This gave him the National League's single-game strikeout record until 1933, when Dizzy Dean struck out seventeen Chicago Cubs.
Rucker played in one World Series game in 1916, when the Dodgers lost the series 4-2 to the Boston Red Sox. Rucker worked two innings, striking out three, without gaining a decision. Rucker had the nickname "Nap, " short for Napoleon. One anecdote claimed that he got the sobriquet from his fondness for ice cream, especially the confection known as napoleon. Rucker reported that the name was "a gift from Grantland Rice, " the dean of American sportswriters, who wrote for the Atlanta Constitution while Rucker was in Augusta and moved to New York about the time Rucker went to Brooklyn. The nickname became so widely known that Rucker adopted it as his unofficial middle name.
After leaving the player ranks, Rucker maintained his link to baseball by serving as the Dodgers scout in the South. Back home in Georgia, he worked the family farm and operated a wheat and corn mill with the father of his wife. In 1934, Rucker was elected mayor of Roswell, the town next to Crabapple. He served for a salary of $100 a year for two years. Later, he continued his public service as the town's water commissioner and umpire for community ball games. He died at his home in Crabapple.
Rucker's career epitomized the pattern of early baseball professionals. He never attended college (where football was the gentleman's amateur sport). His salary never reached above $4, 500 a year, and it averaged just a shade under $3, 400 a year for his major-league career. He did receive one loser's share of the World Series money, enough to purchase a second farm in his neighborhood of Georgia. Rucker remained the property of the Dodgers, whose owner, Charles Ebbets, refused offers of $25, 000 to purchase his contract. Rucker and other professional baseball players had no choice but to play for the team holding their contracts. (Baseball's free agents did not appear until after World War II. ) When his career ended, Rucker, like other ballplayers of the era, went home without a pension or retirement fund.
Rucker married Edith Wing Wood on October 1, 1911. They had one child.