October 31, 2020

This Date in 1920

October 31, 1920 brings news that Rube Marquard will get a hearing on his suspension from baseball due to scalping tickets at the World Series:

Organized baseball always has been very firm and virtuous about disciplining a young ball player or an old ball player who is about through. But the punishment of Rube Marquard is all out of proportion. It is the same punishment that was meted out to the Chicago Players who sold themselves to the gamblers. Moreover, the scalpers around New York had plenty of tickets to the Brooklyn game, which would indicate that others beside the Rube were engaged in the ticket business during the series.

New York Tribune

Baseball reinstated Marquard, but Charles Ebbetts, owner of the Dodgers, would not allow him to pitch for Brooklyn:

“I am through with him, absolutely,” said Brooklyn President Charles Ebbets. “He hasn’t been released, however, and if anyone wants him, he can have him. But Marquard will never again put on a Brooklyn uniform.”19

True to Ebbets’s word, the Robins traded Marquard to Cincinnati for pitcher Dutch Ruether on December 15, 1920. Marquard won 17 games (17-14, 3.39 ERA) for the Reds in 1921. But the Reds, who had just won the World Series in 1919, sank to the second division in the NL. Marquard, who had divorced Blossom Seeley, married Naomi Wigley from Baltimore in 1921.

SABR.org

Looking at his biography, there appears to be a bit of sketchiness to Marquard’s life.

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