Friday, March 7, 2014

1922 W573 #75 Cliff Markle

Here's an excellent recent purchase. In 1922, penny arcades, candy stores, and toy stores offered uncut picture strips of 10 baseball players, each picture being 2" x 3.5", or so. Then kids would slice em up, get them covered in filth, and put them in a shoebox, only to be unearthed by idiots like us a century later. The cards have a blank back and they're fairly thin, but not paper-thin.


As for Cliff Markle, he pitched for the Yankees in 1915, 1916, and 1924, and for the Reds in 1921 and 1922. His best year was 1922 when he pitched in 25 games (14 more than any other year) which included 16 starts, a 3.87 ERA, and a 4-5 record. This is one of only two cards of Markle, the other being an American Caramel release from the same year.

Go Reds.

5 comments:

  1. Great card. Actually in pretty good shape. For. A strip card

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think Cliff Markle was my great-uncle, and am trying to find out for sure. My great-uncle was born August Sachs in approx. 1890. He was Jewish, and changed his name to Cliff Markle (sometimes spelled Merkle) because there was a lot of prejudice against Jews at the time. He pitched for the Cincinnati Reds.
    Does anyone know whether Cliff Markle the baseball player was oringinally named August Sachs?
    If anyone knows more, could you comment?
    Thanks
    E.B. in Seattle

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cliff Markle is listed as born May 3, 1894 in Dravosburg, PA, with no high school known. I dont know if birth records are reliable from that era, but you could start there. if he was born with a different name, and wanted to change it, i'd say it's likely he would have made up a birthday/city as well.

      the reds have no listing of an August Sachs, fyi, and Cliff Markle is the only Markle to have ever played baseball for any team, according to baseball-reference.com. seems to be this is who you're looking for.

      Delete
    2. Thanks--I'm glad to hear that Cliff Markle is the only Markle to have ever played baseball for any team. This must be August Sachs, the birthplace is correct, and so is the year and team (Cincinnati Reds, for part of his career).
      What's especially neat is that his nephew (my uncle) was also a pitcher, although a lefty. My uncle was very good and wanted to go pro, but had trouble controlling his pitch in college.

      Thanks for telling me about baseball-reference.com

      Delete