Interesting Tangent

[JanesAddctn]

I was fortunate to pull a diamond Rube Marquard. My first thought was "who in the heck is Rube Marquard?"

I know some of you have an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball but I do not. So a quick look at Baseball Reference and I find that Rube played from 1908-1925 for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves with a career ERA of 3.08. In 1912, he won 19 decisions in a row. I found audio of him describing how he "hobo'd" his way on the rails to play in his first professional game.

All interesting enough until I read he was a Vaudeville performer and married another Vaudevillian named Blossom Seeley. She was an interesting subject herself with numerous YouTube videos of her singing including an appearance on Ed Sullivan.

Funniest thing about Rube? Bill James described him as "probably the worst starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame."

I did sell the card as I could not pass up more then 200k PP. Also wanted to sell before posting this to avoid looking like a marketing effort.

Any similar experiences?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by JanesAddctn

Any similar experiences?

I consider myself well-educated in baseball history but I am embarrassed to say that I knew virtually nothing about Martin Dihigo until today. I did some research and became so impressed with his career that I paid more than I should for the card just because I wanted him on my team. The quote in OOTPB from Johnny Mize where he claims that Dihigo was the best ballplayer that he ever saw was made while Mize was playing for a team that Dihigo managed in the Dominican Republic. Dihigo was 38 at the time that Mize made his assessment.

[Warhawk]

Originally Posted by JanesAddctn

Funniest thing about Rube? Bill James described him as "probably the worst starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame."

This led me to do a Google search on worst players in the hall of fame which led me to a Bleacher Report list of 25 players which included Sutter, Gossage, Fingers, and Ecklersley, on the basis that being a relief pitcher is the "easiest and least exciting" role in baseball and that no relief pitcher deserves to be in, with the possible extremely iffy exception of Mariano Rivera, and now I'm kind of regretting doing that Google search to begin with.

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by JanesAddctn

I was fortunate to pull a diamond Rube Marquard. My first thought was "who in the heck is Rube Marquard?"

I know some of you have an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball but I do not. So a quick look at Baseball Reference and I find that Rube played from 1908-1925 for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves with a career ERA of 3.08. In 1912, he won 19 decisions in a row. I found audio of him describing how he "hobo'd" his way on the rails to play in his first professional game.

All interesting enough until I read he was a Vaudeville performer and married another Vaudevillian named Blossom Seeley. She was an interesting subject herself with numerous YouTube videos of her singing including an appearance on Ed Sullivan.

Funniest thing about Rube? Bill James described him as "probably the worst starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame."

I did sell the card as I could not pass up more then 200k PP. Also wanted to sell before posting this to avoid looking like a marketing effort.

Any similar experiences?

Wow. That was very thoughtful of you. Few would think about that before posting.

[Cheesehead1964]

I learned about Rube Marquard reading The Glory of Their Times, a great book on baseball's early years. I learned about Martin Dihigo drafting Hall of Fame teams on Stratomatic. He was always a beast.

[SpacePope]

Mark Belanger. (my baseball knowledge is pretty weak)

He was a WAR 4.9 guy for me in iron league last season thanks to his amazing defense. He's a key part of my team strategy, even though he is the second lowest rated player on my team.

Earl Weaver is quoted to have told him, "You're my shortstop if you hit .0001." I wish there were room for more players like that in today's game.

Oh, and he is the all time Orioles leader in sac bunts!

Also, hi! this is my first post.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead1964

I learned about Rube Marquard reading The Glory of Their Times, a great book on baseball's early years. I learned about Martin Dihigo drafting Hall of Fame teams on Stratomatic. He was always a beast.

I read that this year. Excellent read.

[bphilb]

Thanks for posting this OP. I was familiar with Marqued from Bill James Historical Abstract and an old computer game I used to play called Earl Weaver baseball. This best thing about this game to me is that you see players you don't know, or don't remember well and researching and learning about their careers. I am a huge fan of baseball history and there are still cards that I see where I have to look up a player because I can't remember them very vividly. It really is fun to me, though it's typically old historical bronze players I'm looking up and not guys netting me 200k.

[justpatrick]

That´s interesting James thought Marquard was the worst hall of fame SP, I would have chosen Herb Pennock for that dubious honor. Of course the worst player in the HOF is still in the HOF, which isn´t a bad thing.

[Drezik]

That's another aspect of this game that I love, it's made me brush up on my baseball research.

Another interesting tid-bit is that I have come to love a few players that I used to hate...Brian Wilson for example.

[justpatrick]

Originally Posted by Drezik

That's another aspect of this game that I love, it's made me brush up on my baseball research.

Another interesting tid-bit is that I have come to love a few players that I used to hate...Brian Wilson for example.

Ha, ha, that´s very true. Who knew I could ever love Larry Bowa???