“I don’t think that’s so wonderful,” I said. “And as for being overpaid, I get that much right now from the ice-cream company, and in addition I get to eat all the ice cream I want.”
They wouldn’t increase their price, and I wouldn’t reduce mine, so I left and went home. On the way home, though, I stopped in this sporting-goods store at 724 Prospect Avenue. It was owned by Bill Bradley and Charlie Carr, and was a popular hangout for ballplayers. Bill Bradley, of course, played third base for Cleveland, and Charlie Carr managed and played first base for Indianapolis in the American Association.
When I walked in the door Bill Bradley said, “Hello, Big Leaguer, I understand the boss wants to sign you up.”
“Not me,” I said, “he wouldn’t pay me as much as I already make with the ice-cream company.”
“You know, I manage the Indianapolis club,” Charlie Carr said.
“I know that.”
“How would you like to sign with me?”
“You’re in the minor leagues,” I said. “If a major-league club won’t pay me what I want, how could you do it?”
“How much do you want?”
I took a deep breath. “Two hundred a month.”
“Wow! You want all the money, don’t you!” he said.
“No, but you want a good pitcher, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m one.”
And darned if he didn’t agree to it. So right then and there I signed my first professional contract, with Indianapolis of the American Association.
When I got home that night I had to tell my Dad about it, because I was to leave for Indianapolis the next day. Oh, that was a terrible night. Finally, Dad said, “Now listen, I’ve told you time and time again that I don’t want you to be a professional ballplayer. But you’ve got your mind made up. Now I’m going to tell you something: when you cross that threshold, don’t come back. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“You don’t mean that, Dad,” I said.
“Yes I do.”
“Well, I’m going,” I said, “and some day you’ll be proud of me.”
“Proud!” he said. “You’re breaking my heart, and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“I won’t break your heart,” I said. “I’ll add more years to your life. You wait and see.”
So I went to Indianapolis. They optioned me out to Canton in the Central League for the rest of the 1907 season, and I won 23 games with them, which was one-third of all the games the Canton club won that year.
Next year—that would be 1908—I went to spring training with the Indianapolis club. We went to French Lick Springs, Indiana. After three weeks there we went back to Indianapolis and played a few exhibition games before the season opened. Well, believe it or not, the first club to come in for an exhibition game was the Cleveland team: Napoleon Lajoie, Terry Turner, Elmer Flick, George Stovall, and the whole bunch that I used to carry bats for. When they came on the field I was already warming up.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” a couple of them yelled at me. “Are you the bat boy here?”
“No,” I said, “I’m a pitcher.”
“You, a pitcher? Who do you think you’re kidding?”
“Just ask Bill Bradley. He was there when I signed my first contract. You’ll see, I’m going to pitch against you guys today, and I’m going to beat you, too.”
“Beat us! Busher, you couldn’t beat a drum!”
So then Bill Bradley came over and said hello. As he was leaving he said, “Richard, you’re a nice boy, so I want to give you some advice before today’s game. Be careful of the Frenchman.” He meant Napoleon Lajoie. He said, “The Frenchman is very sharp and he’s been hitting terrific line drives this past week. He’s almost killed three of our own pitchers in practice, so there’s no telling what he’ll do in a real game, even if it is just an exhibition game.”
Rube Marquard
I thanked him, of course, and went back to warming up. Well, I pitched the whole nine innings and beat them, 2–0. Lajoie got two hits off me, and I think George Stovall got a couple, but I shut them out—and I wasn’t killed, either.
That night Charlie Carr called me over. “You know,” he said, “a funny thing just happened. Mr. Somers, the owner of the Cleveland club, just came over to my hotel room and wanted to buy you. He offered me $3,500 for your contract with the understanding that you’d stay here all season, to get more experience, and then you would join the Cleveland club next year.”
“Charlie,” I said, “if you sell me to Somers I’m going right back to the ice-cream company. He had first chance to get me, and he wouldn’t give me what I deserved. I won’t play for Cleveland, no matter what.”
“OK,” he said, “don’t worry. I won’t sell you. Later on I’ll be able to sell you for a lot more, anyway.”
On opening day Kansas City was at Indianapolis, and I pitched the opening game. I won, 2–1, and that evening the story in the Indianapolis Star read like this: “The American Association season opened up today, and it was a beautiful game between two fine teams. Each had great pitching, with an eighteen-year-old right-hander pitching for Kansas City and an eighteen-year-old left-hander for the home team. The right-hander with Kansas City looks like he’s going to develop into a great pitcher. They call him Smoky Joe Wood. But we have a left-hander with Indianapolis who is going places, too. He resembles one of the great left-handed pitchers of all time: Rube Waddell.” And from that day on they nicknamed me “Rube.”
I had a wonderful season that year with Indianapolis. I pitched 47 complete games, won 28 of them, led the league in most strikeouts, least hits, most innings pitched, and everything. Occasionally what I’d do would be reported in the Cleveland papers, and friends of mine would tell me that they’d pass by the house and see Dad sitting on the porch.
“Well, Fred,” they’d say—that was my Dad’s name, Fred—“did you see what your son Rube did yesterday?”
“Who are you talking about?” he’d say. “Rube who?”
“Your son, Richard.”
“I told him baseball was no good,” my Dad would reply. “Now they’ve even gone and changed his name!”
Anyway, I had a terrific year with Indianapolis, like I said. Late in the season we went into Columbus, Ohio, and Charlie Carr came up to me before the game.
“Rube,” he said, “there are going to be an awful lot of celebrities here at the game today. The American and National Leagues both have an off-day, and they’re all coming to see you pitch. If you pitch a good game I may be able to sell you before the night is out.”
“For how much?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but a lot. It depends on what kind of game you pitch.”
“Will you cut me in?”
“No, I won’t,” he said. “You’re getting a good salary and you know it.”
“OK,” I said, “I was only kidding anyway.”
“I don’t want you to get nervous today,” he said.
“Nervous? Have I ever been nervous all season?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve been in baseball a long time and I never saw anything like it. I never saw a kid like you, who can beat anybody and is so successful.”
“Well,” I said, “the reason I’m so successful is because I can beat anybody.”
I went out there that day and I pitched one of those unusual games: no hits, no runs, no errors. Twenty-seven men faced me and not one of them got to first base. And that evening in Columbus they put me up for sale, with all the Big-League clubs bidding on me, like a horse being auctioned off. The Cleveland club went as high as $10,500 for my contract, but the Giants went to $11,000, and I was sold to them. At that time that was the highest price ever paid for a baseball player.
I reported to the New York Giants in September of 1908, as soon as the American Association season was over. I was eighteen years old and I was in the Big Leagues!
I came up too late in the season to make
a trip to Chicago with the Giants that year, but the next season we made our first trip to Chicago the second week in June. And the first thing I did, as soon as I got there, was to make a beeline for that firehouse.
The only one there when I first got there was the lieutenant. I walked up to him and said, “Lieutenant, do you remember me?”
“Never saw you before in my life,” he said.
“Well, remember about three years ago you caught me sleeping back of that stove there?”
“Oh, are you the kid from Cleveland that said he’s a ballplayer?”
“Yes. Remember me? My name is Marquard, Richard Marquard.”
“Of course. What are you doing here?”
“I’m in the Big Leagues,” I said. “I told you when I got to the Big Leagues I was coming out to visit you.”
“Well, I’ll be darned,” he said. “Who are you with?”
“Why, I’m with the New York Giants.”
And boy, for years after that, whenever the Giants would come to Chicago I’d go out to that firehouse. I’d sit out front and talk for hours. The firemen would have all the kids in the neighborhood there…and all the families that lived around would stop by…and it was really wonderful. Everybody was so nice and friendly. Gee, I used to enjoy that. It was a great thrill for me.
Actually, every single day of all the years I spent in the Big Leagues was a thrill for me. It was like a dream come true. I was in the Big Leagues for eighteen years, you know, from 1908 through 1925. I was with the Giants until 1915, with the Dodgers for five years after that, with Cincinnati for one year, and then with the Boston Braves for four. And I loved every single minute of it.
The best years of all were those with the Giants. I don’t mean because those were my best pitching years, although they were. In 1911 I won 24 games and lost only 7, and in 1912 I won 26. That’s the year I won 19 straight—I didn’t lose a single game in 1912 until July 8!
Actually, I won 20 straight, not 19, but because of the way they scored then I didn’t get credit for one of them. I relieved Jeff Tesreau in the eighth inning of a game one day, with the Giants behind, 3–2. In the ninth inning Heinie Groh singled and Art Wilson homered, and we won, 4–3. But they gave Tesreau credit for the victory instead of me. Except for that it would have been 20 straight wins, not 19. Well, at any rate that record has stood up for a long time now. Over fifty years.
And, of course, I had other great years with the Giants, too. In 1914 I beat Babe Adams and the Pirates in a 21-inning game, 3–1. Both of us went the entire distance that day, all 21 innings. And in 1915 I pitched a no-hitter against Brooklyn and beat Nap Rucker, 2–0.
But that isn’t why I remember my years with the Giants best. Maybe it’s because that was my first club. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, though, it was wonderful to be a Giant back then, from 1908 to 1915.
Take Mr. McGraw. What a great man he was! The finest and grandest man I ever met. He loved his players and his players loved him. Of course, he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to live up to the rules and regulations of the New York Giants, and when he laid down the law you’d better abide by it.
I’ll never forget one day we were playing Pittsburgh, and it was Red Murray’s turn to bat, with the score tied in the ninth inning. There was a man on second with none out. Murray came over to McGraw—I was sitting next to McGraw on the bench—and he said, “What do you want me to do, Mac?”
“What do I want you to do?” McGraw said. “What are you doing in the National League? There’s the winning run on second base and no one out. What would you do if you were the manager?”
“I’d sacrifice the man to third,” Murray said.
“Well,” McGraw said, “that’s exactly what I want you to do.”
So Murray went up to the plate to bunt. After he got to the batter’s box, though, he backed out and looked over at McGraw again.
McGraw poked his elbow in my ribs. “Look at that so-and-so,” he said. “He told me what he should do, and I told him what he should do, and now he’s undecided. I bet he forgot from the bench to the plate.”
Now, in those days—and I guess it’s the same now—when a man was up there to bunt the pitcher would try to keep the ball high and tight. Well, it so happened that Red was a high-ball hitter. Howie Camnitz was pitching for Pittsburgh. He wound up and in came the ball, shoulder high. Murray took a terrific cut at it and the ball went over the left-field fence. It was a home run and the game was over.
Back in the clubhouse Murray was happy as a lark. He was first into the showers, and out boomed his wonderful Irish tenor, singing “My Wild Irish Rose.” When he came out of the shower, still singing, McGraw walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. All of us were watching out of the corner of our eyes, because we knew The Little Round Man—that’s what we used to call McGraw—wouldn’t let this one go by without saying something.
“Murray, what did I tell you to do?” McGraw asked him.
“You told me to bunt,” Murray said, not looking quite so happy anymore. “But you know what happened, Mac. Camnitz put one right in my gut, so I cow-tailed it.”
“Where did you say he put it?”
“Right in my gut,” Murray says again.
“Well,” McGraw said, “I’m fining you $100, and you can try putting that right in your gut, too!” And off he went.
Oh, God, I never laughed so much in my life! Murray never did live that down. Years later something would happen and we’d yell to Murray, “Hey Red, is that right in your gut?”
There were a lot of grand guys on that club: Christy Mathewson and Chief Meyers, Larry Doyle and Fred Snodgrass, Al Bridwell and Bugs Raymond. Bugs Raymond! What a terrific spitball pitcher he was. Bugs drank a lot, you know, and sometimes it seemed like the more he drank the better he pitched. They used to say he didn’t spit on the ball: he blew his breath on it, and the ball would come up drunk.
Actually, there was very little drinking in baseball in those days. Myself, I’ve never smoked or taken a drink in my life to this day. I always said you can’t burn the candle at both ends. You want to be a ballplayer, be a ballplayer. If you want to go out and carouse and chase around, do that. But you can’t do them both at once.
Of course, when we were on the road we had a nightly eleven o’clock bed check. At eleven o’clock we all had to be in our rooms and the trainer would come around and check us off. We’d usually have a whole floor in a hotel and we’d be two in a room. I always roomed with Matty all the while I was on the Giants. What a grand guy he was! The door would be wide open at eleven o’clock and the trainer would come by with a board with all the names on it. He’d poke his head in: Mathewson, Marquard, check. And lock the door. Next room, check, lock the door.
As far as I was concerned, I never drank a drop even when I was in show business. In 1912 I made a movie with Alice Joyce and Maurice Costello, and then I was in vaudeville for three years, Blossom Seeley and I. That’s when she was my wife. It didn’t work out, though. I asked her to quit the stage. I told her I could give her everything she wanted.
“No,” she said, “show business is show business.”
“Well,” I said, “baseball is mine.” So we separated.
How did I feel when I was traded from the Giants to the Dodgers? Well, not too bad. See, I traded myself. I didn’t seem to be able to get going in 1915 after I pitched that no-hitter early in April, and late in the season McGraw started riding me. That was a very bad year for the Giants, you know. We were favored to win the pennant, and instead we wound up last. So McGraw wasn’t very happy. After I’d taken about as much riding as I could stand, I asked him to trade me if he thought I was so bad.
“Who would take you?” he said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “I can still lick any club in the league.” Heck, I wasn’t twenty-six years old yet.
“Lick any club in the league?” McGraw said. “You couldn’t lick a postage stamp.”
“Give me a chance to
trade myself, then,” I said. “What would you sell me for?”
“$7,500,” he answered.
“OK,” I said, “can I use your phone?”
“Sure,” he said. We were both pretty mad.
So I got hold of the operator and asked her to get me Wilbert Robinson, manager of the Brooklyn club. See, Robbie had been a coach with us for years before he became the Dodger manager in 1914. After a while she got Robbie on the phone.
“Hello,” he says.
“How are you, Robbie?” I said.
“Fine,” he said. “Who is this?”
Christy Mathewson: “What a grand guy he was!”
“How would you like to have a good left-handed pitcher?”
“I’d love it,” he said. “Who is this? Who’s the man? Who are you going to recommend?”
“I’m going to recommend myself.”
“Who are you?”
“Rube Marquard.”
“Oh, what are you kidding around for, Rube?” he said. “I have to go out on the field and I don’t have time to fool around.”
“No, I’m serious,” I said. “McGraw is right here and he says he’ll sell me for $7,500. Do you want to talk to him?”
“Of course I do,” Robbie said. And right then and there I was traded from the Giants to the Dodgers.
And, of course, we—the Dodgers, that is—won the pennant the next year, and I had one of the best years I ever had. I think I had an earned run average of about 1.50 in 1916. And then we won the pennant again in 1920. So everything worked out pretty well.
“Why, I’m with the New York Giants”
One day when I was pitching for Brooklyn I pitched the first game of a double-header against Boston and beat them, 1–0. I was in the clubhouse during the second game, taking off my uniform, when the clubhouse boy came in.
“Rube,” he said, “there’s an elderly gentleman outside who wants to see you. He says he’s your father from Cleveland.”
“He’s not my father,” I said. “My father wouldn’t go across the street to see me. But you go out and get his autograph book and bring it in, and I’ll autograph it for him.”
The Glory of Their Times Page 3