Friday, September 9, 2011

Unpossible Autograph Friday- Roger Marquis


Roger "Noonie" Marquis likely had the shortest Orioles career of any of the 909 men who have worn the orange and black. His Baltimore career lasted only a single game, but more specifically, only an inning in the field and a single at-bat. On September 25, 1955, when he was only 18 years old, Roger entered the game as a defensive replacement in the 8th inning, grounded out in his AB in the top of the ninth and was back on the bench by the bottom of the ninth. And that was it. Wham bam thank you ma'am.

It's hard to say if Roger's reaction to his extremely brief MLB career was the sense of accomplishment that many of us average Joe's would have felt just to make it to the show or if he was disappointed that he was unable to have more of a chance to play at the big league level. He played baseball at the low levels of the Orioles' farm system for a few more years after that single big league inning, but had permanently hung up his spikes by the age of 20.

His baseball career over, Roger headed back to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts and started some sort of oil business, which he later sold, hopefully for a profit. He passed away at the age of 67 in 2004. RIP Roger, congrats on making it to the Bigs, even if it was for a single inning. It's something I know that I will never do!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know this guy's grandson