Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Veterans Committee that looked to enshrine a number of players from his era and the previous century who had contributed to the growth of the game.
One of Waddell's contributions was that he was perhaps the greatest drawing card in the first decade of the century, a man whose unique talents and personality drew baseball fans around the country to ballparks.

In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.
Under what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome", they argued in favor of including players of truly exceptional talent whose career was curtailed by injury (or, in Waddell's case, substance abuse), despite not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank them with the all-time greats.
In this case, fans and peers recognized Waddell as a baseball great long before Ritter and Honig did.
Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Veterans Committee that looked to enshrine a number of players from his era and the previous century who had contributed to the growth of the game. One of Waddell's contributions was that he was perhaps the greatest drawing card in the first decade of the century, a man whose unique talents and personality drew baseball fans around the country to ballparks.
In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. Under what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome", they argued in favor of including players of truly exceptional talent whose career was curtailed by injury (or, in Waddell's case, substance abuse), despite not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank them with the all-time greats. In this case, fans and peers recognized Waddell as a baseball great long before Ritter and Honig did.
Rube Waddell