Richard William "Rube" Marquard (October 9, 1886 – June 1, 1980) was an American left-handed
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...
in
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
in the 1910s and early 1920s. He achieved his greatest success with the
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...
. He was inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United S ...
in
1971 *
The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...
.
Early life
Rube Marquard was born in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...
, to German immigrant Fred Marquard and Lena Heiser Marquard. Marquard claimed an 1889 year of birth, but 1900 census data and a birth certificate show an 1886 year of birth. Lena Marquard died of an abdominal infection in 1899, and Rube's grandmother took responsibility for raising him. Marquard quit school after the fifth grade; biographer Larry Mansch writes that he "simply refused to attend any longer".
Newspaper reports first mentioned Marquard in 1905, when he played with an amateur team in Cleveland. Though pitching for a poor team that had a 1–15
win–loss record at one point, Marquard attracted attention as a top pitcher. He broke a City League record with 16 strikeouts in a game against a team known as Brittons Printing. In September, the City League season finished and he signed with the semiprofessional Telling Strollers, an independent team sponsored by an ice cream company.
Career
He started his minor-league baseball career in 1906.
["Rube Marquard Minor League Statistics & History"](_blank)
baseball-reference.com. Retrieved February 1, 2013. Despite his nickname, he was a city kid. As he told it in the 1966 book ''
The Glory of Their Times
''The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It'' is a 1966 book, edited by Lawrence Ritter, telling the stories of early 20th century baseball. It is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest book ...
'', a writer in his minor-league days compared him favorably with
Rube Waddell
George Edward "Rube" Waddell (October 13, 1876 – April 1, 1914) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). A left-hander, he played for 13 years, with the Louisville Colonels, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago Orphans in the Nati ...
, and soon Marquard was being called "Rube", also.
In 1907, he went 23–13 with a 2.01
earned run average
In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...
(ERA) and led the
Central League
The or , also known as the for sponsorship reasons, is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League i ...
in wins. In 1908, he went 28–19 with a 1.69 ERA and led the
American Association in wins. The New York Giants purchased Marquard for $11,000 — a then unheard-of sum to pay for a baseball player's contract — and his lack of success early in his major-league career led to his being tagged "the $11,000 lemon".

From 1911 to 1913, Marquard won at least 23 games each season, and helped the Giants win three consecutive
National League
National League often refers to:
*National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada
*National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...
pennants. In 1911, he led the league with 237
strikeout
In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It means the batter is out, unless the third strike is not caught by the catcher and the batter reaches first base safe ...
s. In 1912, he led the league with 26 wins.
["Rube Marquard Statistics and History"](_blank)
baseball-reference.com. Retrieved February 1, 2013. He also made baseball history by winning 19 decisions in a row.
In 1914, Marquard went 12–22, and in 1915, he joined the
Brooklyn Robins
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brookl ...
. He helped the team win pennants in 1916 and 1920. He then played for the
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...
in 1921 and
Boston Braves
The Boston Braves were a Major League Baseball club that originated in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, and played from 1871 to 1952. Afterwards they moved to History of the Atlanta Braves#Milwaukee, Milwaukee (and became the Milwaukee Braves). ...
from 1922 to 1925.
During the 1920 World Series, he was arrested for
ticket scalping
Ticket resale (also known as ticket scalping or ticket touting when done for profit) is the act of reselling tickets for admission to events. Tickets are bought from licensed sellers and then sold for a price determined by the individual or compan ...
in Cleveland. He was alleged to be selling eight world box seats for $350 ($ in current dollar terms), while the original cost was $52.80 ($ in current dollar terms). He was found guilty and fined $1 plus $3.50 in court costs.
Marquard finished his major-league career in 1925 with a record of 201–177 and a 3.08 ERA.
His 1,593 strikeouts ranked third in major-league history among left-handers at the time (behind Rube Waddell and
Eddie Plank), and stood as the National League record for southpaws until his total was surpassed by
Carl Hubbell
Carl Owen Hubbell (June 22, 1903 – November 21, 1988), nicknamed "the Meal Ticket" and "King Carl", was an American Major League Baseball player. He was a pitcher for the New York Giants of the National League from 1928 to 1943, and remained ...
, another New York Giant, in 1942.
He later pitched and managed in the minor leagues until 1933.
After baseball, he worked as a betting window teller at
Narragansett Park
Narragansett Park was an American race track for Thoroughbred horse racing in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Beginnings
On May 18, 1934, Rhode Island voters approved a measure legalizing parimutuel betting by an almost 3 to 1 margin. The following day ...
.
Legacy
Marquard was a performer in
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...
, appearing with
Blossom Seeley
Blossom Seeley (July 16, 1886
[Blossom Seeley biography](_blank)
ragpiano.com. Accessed July 14, 2022. and later marrying her. That same year, Seeley gave birth to a son, Richard William Marquard II.
He was elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United S ...
in 1971. His selection has often been criticized by the
sabermetrics
Sabermetrics (originally SABRmetrics) is the original or blanket term for sports analytics in the US, the empirical analysis of baseball, especially the development of advanced metrics based on baseball statistics that measure in-game activity ...
community, since Marquard's career
adjusted ERA+ was only slightly better than league average.
Bill James
George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books about baseball history and statistics. His a ...
described Marquard as "probably the worst starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame."
Marquard had been interviewed for the popular 1966 baseball book, ''
The Glory of Their Times
''The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It'' is a 1966 book, edited by Lawrence Ritter, telling the stories of early 20th century baseball. It is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest book ...
'', and his chapter is thought to be one of the primary reasons for his election. However, most of the stories that he "recounted" were later found to be false.
Marquard died in
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...
, on June 1, 1980, at the age of 93. He is interred in Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery in Baltimore.
See also
*
List of Major League Baseball individual streaks
The following is a list of notable individual player streaks achieved in Major League Baseball.
Hitting
Consecutive game records
Hitting streak, Consecutive games with a hit
*Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, 56 – Joe DiMaggio, New Yo ...
*
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
*
List of Major League Baseball annual strikeout leaders
*
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
Major League Baseball recognizes the player or players in each league with the most wins each season. In baseball, Win (baseball), wins are a baseball statistics, statistic used to evaluate pitchers. Credit for a win is given by the official scor ...
*
List of Major League Baseball no-hitters
Below is a list of Major League Baseball no-hitters, enumerating every no-hitter pitched in Major League Baseball history. The list also includes no-hit games that were broken up in extra innings or were in shortened games, although they have no ...
Further reading
*Mansch, Larry D
''Rube Marquard: The Life and Times of a Baseball Hall of Famer'' McFarland, 1998. .
References
External links
*
*
Interview with Rube Marquardconducted by
Eugene Murdock on August 2, 1979, in
Pikesville, Maryland
Pikesville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. Pikesville is just northwest of the Baltimore city limits. It is the northwestern suburb closest to Baltimore.
The population ...
.
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marquard, Rube
1886 births
1980 deaths
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Major League Baseball pitchers
Baseball players from Cleveland
National League strikeout champions
National League (baseball) wins champions
New York Giants (baseball) players
Brooklyn Robins players
Cincinnati Reds players
Boston Braves players
Minor league baseball managers
Lancaster Lanks players
Waterloo Microbes players
Canton Chinamen players
Indianapolis Indians players
Providence Rubes players
Birmingham Barons players
Baltimore Orioles (International League) players
20th-century American sportsmen
Jacksonville Tars players
Atlanta Crackers players
Wichita Oilers players
Muskogee Oilers players
American vaudeville performers