The United States was not yet involved in the Great War when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1916. Still, by this time Canadian and other colonial troops were already playing the game overseas in their own military leagues. Note Babe Ruth sitting fourth from the left.

They are playing the All Star game tonight in San Diego. During the Great War the best individual players of the American League did not yet play their counterparts from the Senior Circuit in the game that traditionally marks the half way point of a season. That is probably because the World Series itself had begun only in 1903 and the game was still institutionalizing itself. Still, even though the United States had not entered the war by 1916, baseball was catching on overseas; it was the war’s second summer and Canadians had brought the game with them when they packed their old kit bags and headed off to fight the Hun. There were even military leagues comprised of Canadians and other men from the colonies playing one another.

Wounded Canadians pose in Mrs. Astor’s hospital, c. 1915

Men in uniform brought baseball to many corners of the globe over the course the twentieth century. The U.S. occupations of Latin and South America are what led to the rise of the Dominican, Puerto Rican and other Hispanic stars we see today. Baseball’s popularity expanded in Japan after 1945, though I hasten to add that the baseball was already going strong with the Japanese even in the 1920s and 1930s. William Howard Taft noted in the 1910s, after his presidency, that Filipinos were picking up the game during his years as Governor-General of the Philippines. Americans entered the Great War in 1917 and when they did of course brought their bats, balls, and gloves with them. Even stars like Ty Cobb ended up in uniform.

It is curious why the game did not stick permanently with Europeans after the war. Perhaps it was because the countries were too devastated and the populations of young men too damaged to take up the pastime. Or maybe cricket, soccer, cycling and the like were just too entrenched. Or maybe it was a combination of all these things. Again, I don’t know. We can only wonder might have happened to international baseball had the game not had more a fleeting moment in the sun during the First World War.

(images/Library of Congress)

I spent the morning putting things in order in the new apartment upstairs. I’d say 95% of our belongings have now been transferred up there. I am actually downstairs again at the moment because the gas and internet are not yet on in the new place. I came down at 8:00 am to boil the water for the French press before going back up with the brewed coffee and doing some things. It has been a stressful Memorial Day Weekend with so much going on, but I’m looking at it as a little adventure; it’s the only way. I’m going to finish grading papers tonight and my colleague and I are going to get together tomorrow and compute the final grades, which are due Tuesday midnight. It’s bee one of “those weeks” but I was thankfully able to get a few days off, which has made things so much easier. I’m looking at the bright side and seeing the move as a fresh start. We have even managed to throw away a great deal.

Ray Knight walks down the red carpet to greet teammates from the 1986 Mets. Note the sell-out crowd.

A friend and I squeezed in the Mets/Dodgers game last night on what turned out to be an unseasonably warm evening. The 1986 Mets celebrated their World Seres before the game. I must say that even thirty years and three Red Sox championships later I was surprised at how much it hurt to watch. Still it was fun meeting older folks–that is, people my age–enjoying the thing. Waiting in line at the john I had a good conversation with a couple of good-natured guys who remembered ’86 so fondly. Of course I didn’t tell them I was rooting for the other team during that great long ago. We got to talking about where the years went. I’m glad the Mets are home this Memorial Day Weekend and that we had a chance to go.

I noted happily that the Washington Nationals are also home this weekend. I don’t think it was planned this way–that would make too much sense–but it’s great when the Nationals play at home over Memorial Day Weekend. Rolling Thunder is going on. The President usually appears at Arlington. Baseball in the capital at this time seems so appropriate. It really should be an annual thing.

It’s Opening Day of the baseball season. I am listening to the Pirates and Cardinals on the radio as I type this. Living in Brooklyn it is hard not to think of the Dodgers this time of year, especially with this being Vin Scully’s final year. It’s hard and sad to imagine.

Rube Marquard (1889-1980) as he was when he played for the Brooklyn Robins

One of the great Brooklyn players was Rube Marquard, who went 13-6 with a 1.58 ERA in 1916. Two years later Marquand and another Brooklyn Robin, as the team was called at that time, enlisted in the Navy when the team was on a road trip in Chicago. Incredibly Marquard even pitched that day–Saturday 20 July 1918–going seven innings and giving up one earned run but getting a no-decision in a 6-4 Brooklyn win. Marquard did not directly enter the Navy. Secretary of War Newton Baker was still deciding whether or not baseball was non-essential to the war effort and thus cancel the rest of the season. Until a decision was made Rube and everyone else was allowed to finish the season. He did not play well that year, which is not surprising given that everyone was on pins and needles waiting to see what would happen in both baseball and the war overseas. Secretary Baker eventually decided to a allow baseball to continue, but with a shortened season ending on September 1.

His draft registration card. It is interesting to note that he lived in Upper Manhattan, which is not surprising given that he played for the Giants before the Robins. The card lists his profession as ballplayer and calls the team the Brooklyn Ball Club, its proper name.

Baseball even got a small reprieve when Labor Day 1918 fell on September 2, giving the National League an extra day. Richard William “Rube” Marquard was in uniform three weeks later. He never did go to France. Instead he stayed in Brooklyn, stationed to the Navy Yard, and played for the base team, the Mine Sweepers. It’s incredible to see it below but the War Department did not waste any time letting Marquard go. He was discharged on Armistice Day 1918.

Brooklyn was in Chicago playing the Cubs when Marquard enlisted in the Navy. He pitched later that day and entered the Navy three weeks after the season ended in September. A Note: Most sources list his birth year as 1886. However, all of Marquard’s official documents–military papers, census records–say 1889.

Rube Marquard was a fun loving guy who enjoyed vaudeville and the racetrack. He ended up marrying a showgirl and had jobs working at various tracks in the decades after his retirement. His WW2 draft registration card shows him working at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Track in 1942. Marquard was virtually forgotten until Lawrence Ritter published his oral history The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It in 1966. Five years after that Rube was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown by the veterans committee. Many believe he was undeserving and that he is one of the weaker HOF inductees. One argument is that he got in due to the nostalgia factor. It is certainly true that after the exhaustion of the Civil Rights Era, all the assassinations, the Vietnam War, and Curt Flood’s ongoing challenge of the reserve clause the 1910s must have seemed a simpler time. Of course we know better. The past was never as easy or uncomplicated as people believe it to have been.

Marquard retired after the 1925 season. He had played eighteen seasons and finished with a record of 201-177.

(images/top: Library of Congress; middle and bottom: U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 and New York, Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919 via Ancestry.com)

I just returned from Citi Field where we saw Chris Heston of the Giants toss a no-hitter against the Mets. Here are a few pics from the night.

No, this is not Rikers Island. That’s Heston on the left and pitching coach Dave Righetti on the right. As we were watching Heston warm up a few of us began talking about where we were when Righetti threw his no-no against the Red Sox on July 4, 1983. I suppose I am officially old, as I remember that day succinctly.

I was hoping for American Pharoah to throw out the first pitch but instead it was his jockey, Victor Espinoza. People were really excited to see Espinoza and he got a good hand. Note the seat location. We usually sit high up but right on the first base line. Most action takes places right in front of you that way.

We moved down to Field Level for the bottom of the ninth. So did many other folks. The crowd was wide awake and excited.

There is not much to say about the performance. The rookie gave up no hits and zero walks. He did hit three batters, though thankfully no one was hurt. He struck out the side in the ninth and this was the scene with his teammates.

You never know what you will see when you go to the ballpark.

Spot Poles and other ballplayers played for such hotels as the Royal Poinciana

A year or so ago there was an ESPN 30 for 30 short called Borscht Belt Bellhop about Wilt Chamberlain and other African American basketball players who worked as cooks, waiters and valets in the summer camps of Upstate New York back in the 1950s. What I did not know until researching and writing the bit about Spottswood Poles for the WW1 Centennial Commission last week is that there was a similar phenomenon that took place in Florida and California in the early twentieth century. Negro players such as Poles played baseball in so-called hotel leagues during the winter months. In Poles’s case it was Palm Beach. In the years immediately before and after the First World War he played for Royal Poinciana and The Breakers Hotels.

When not playing ball they worked in the dining room and elsewhere.

The Florida Hotel League, sometimes called the Coconut League, went back to the 1890s until finally disbanding in 1931. Such leagues played an abbreviated schedule of about fifteen games, usually twice a week from January through March. This was the same period that most ball clubs, white and black, went to Florida, the sunny West Coast, or the Caribbean to train. Gametime was usually scheduled for mid-afternoon between the lunch and dinner hours. That is because the players served double-duty as the waitstaff and in other capacities. Poles led the Florida Hotel League in batting several seasons and led the Breakers to titles in both 1915 and 1916. Poles returned to Palm Beach in 1917. By the end of the year he was in France with the 369th. He saw a great deal of the hard fighting of 1918.

Here is the field. The crowd was primarily the hotel guests.

The money was never good in the Florida Hotel League but it did give players a chance to make a few dollars, get out of the cold, play some innings and otherwise get in shape for the regular season.

After playing in 1914 with Poinciana, Poles jumped teams and joined The Breakers.

Enjoy the season.

(Royal Poinciana images, Library of Congress; The Breakers, NYPL)