SubscribeRube Marquard: Not a Jew but…
On my other blog I take note of the birthdays of baseball personalities who have either written or have been the subjects of books. So when I marked the 124th birthday of Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Marquard last week, I noticed from his page on Baseball-Reference.com that he was buried in the Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery.
This struck me as quite odd, since in all the literature on Jews and baseball he has never been identified as MOT. But thanks to the learned folks in the Jewish Sports Collectors Yahoo group, here’s the answer:
From Neil Keller, as posted to the group:
Rube married a Jane Hecht Guggenheimer. According to Jacqui Blythe, a relative of Jane, both Jane and Rube were Christian but chose to be buried with Jane’s family which is Jewish. I visited the grave site and non-Jews are allowed to be buried there if they let a Rabbi officiate it.
Marquard died in Baltimore in 1980.
Rube and Jane were good friends. They were both Christian Scientists.
Well Marquard’s first wife was the singer Blossom Seeley, who was Jewish and they were an early and highly popular athlete and entertainer couple, performing together in vaudeville.