John Michael “Mique” Malloy has at least three different listings under various forms of his name on Baseball Reference.
Malloy was born in Chicago in 1885, and played mostly amateur and semi-pro ball in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, but had a brief professional career as a player and manager in the Wisconsin-Illinois and Minnesota-Wisconsin Leagues. The few statistics that survive include a .301 batting average in 133 at bats as a player-manager with the 1913 Wausau Lumberjacks–Malloy fractured his ankle in June and was released in July.
With his playing career over Malloy joined the Chicago Cubs as a scout, but left after the 1913 season to scout for the Chicago franchise in the Federal League.
Malloy became a footnote in the battle between the Federal League and the American and National Leagues, when in April of 1914 according to The Chicago Examiner he filed a $2000 lawsuit against the Cubs claiming he was not paid by the team for helping to sign Zip Zabel and Fritz Mollwitz.
It appears the suit was settled amicably and Malloy returned to the Cubs scouting staff after the Federal League folded.
He stayed with the Cubs with several years, but after World War I entered the business for which he was best known.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s Malloy was one of the most prominent boxing promoters in Chicago. Malloy, Paddy Harmon, the man responsible for building Chicago Stadium, and Jim Mullen had a piece of every major fight that took place in Chicago.
1930s poster featuring promoters Mique Malloy, Jim Mullen and Paddy Harmon, and some of their stable of fighters.
In August of 1930, The Chicago Daily News said Malloy offered Washington Senators First Baseman Art Shires “(A) guarantee of $50,000 (and) two-thirds of the gate over expenses,” if he returned to the ring–Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis had ruled that no Major League player would be permitted to box after Shires’ five fights in December of 1929 and January of 1930—Shires, at the height of celebrity failed to cash in on the offer and found himself broke and returning to the ring for two much less lucrative fights in 1935.
John Michael “Mique” Malloy, 1922
Malloy, at various times, was closely associated with champions Primo Carnera, John Henry Lewis and Henry Armstrong. It was a rift with Armstrong that led to the worst publicity of Malloy’s career. After a February 1938 bout Malloy promoted at the International Amphitheater, Armstrong vowed never to fight for Malloy again and claimed that the promoter had seated fans in segregated sections. There is no record of whether or not Malloy responded to the charges.
Malloy continued to promote boxing and wrestling cards in Chicago until he retired in 1947; he died in Chicago in 1952.
Another Malloy story tomorrow.
Baseball History Daily 
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