Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Hough
Here is another great example: William Rummler, a LF, expects to be in the starting lineup even though he played just 27 games in MLB in 1916 and was in the AA minors otherwise
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After nearly a century, many baseball historians still wonder how Shoeless Joe Jackson’s career might have turned out were he not permanently banned from baseball after the fixing of the 1919 World Series. The same question remains for another slugging outfielder who was also thrown out of Organized Baseball after he was accused of taking a bribe to influence the outcome of games. No, not one of Jackson’s Black Sox teammates, but a lesser known minor leaguer named Bill Rumler.
Already a veteran of three major-league seasons, Rumler led the Pacific Coast League in batting in 1919 with a .362 average. Only 28 years old, he seemed certain to get a chance to return to the major leagues. But he and two Salt Lake City Bees teammates reportedly accepted money to throw a late-season series against Vernon (California), allowing Vernon to win the league pennant. Rumler was suspended from Organized Baseball and spent the next eight years playing in the outlaw leagues.
When his ban was finally lifted, Rumler’s first season back was eerily reminiscent of Roy Hobbs in Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural, published more than two decades later. Now 38 years old, Rumler returned to the Pacific Coast League with Hollywood in 1929 and hit .386 with 26 home runs, leading the team to the pennant. With that kind of production, eight years removed from his last game before being suspended, one can only imagine what kind of career Rumler may have had if he had been eligible to play during the prime of his career. - SABR
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From the Natural:
Pop Fisher : Hobbs. I'm sending you down Hobbs, Class B ball. Tomorrow you go to the Great Lakes Assocaition.
Roy Hobbs : All right. You make the rules.
Pop Fisher : That's right, that's right and you ain't been playing by 'em. Don't you remember signing a contract!
Roy Hobbs : I remember signing a contract, to play ball not to be put to sleep by some two bit carney hypnotist! I won't do that Pop! I can't.
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Maybe Bill feels the same as Roy. He signed a contract to play ball. He won't sit. He can't
