Batting Average .273 Role Baseball player Name Bob Marquis | RBI 3 Home Runs 2 | |
Died December 28, 2007, Beaumont, Texas, United States | ||
Robert Rudolph Marquis (December 23, 1924 – December 28, 2007) was an American professional baseball player, an outfielder who played from 1947 to 1954, and for the Cincinnati Redlegs of Major League Baseball in 1953. The native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, threw and batted left-handed; he stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 170 pounds (77 kg).
He began his professional career in 1947 with the Lufkin Foresters, hitting .346 with 22 doubles and 16 triples in 140 games. He was sent to the Beaumont Exporters in the New York Yankees system, and with them he played in four games, going 0-for-1 at the plate. In 1948, he played for Beaumont (two games) and the Quincy Gems (126 games), hitting a combined .333 with 15 home runs, 18 triples and 21 doubles.
Marquis split the 1949 season between Beaumont (20 games) and the Binghamton Triplets (106 games), hitting a combined .236 in 453 at-bats. He hit .293 in 151 games for Beaumont in 1950, and with the Kansas City Blues in 1951 he hit .278 in 123 games. He played for the Blues again in 1952, hitting .246 in 97 games. On August 28, 1952, he was traded to Cincinnati with Jim Greengrass, Ernie Nevel, Johnny Schmitz and $35,000 for Ewell Blackwell. The Reds' manager, Baseball Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, had been Beaumont's skipper in 1950.
He made his big league debut on April 17, 1953. In 40 games with the Redlegs (as the Reds were known from 1953–1958) that year, he hit .273 with two home runs, a triple and a double in 44 at-bats. Despite posting an OPS+ of 108, that would end up being his only year in the big leagues – he played his final game on July 7. He also spent 61 games in the minors that year; with the Portland Beavers he hit .271. Back in the minors in 1954, he hit .282 with 16 triples in 143 games for Beaumont.
After his death, he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Beaumont.