The Selling of the Babe (43 page)

“Not a single player”:
Boston Post,
July 4, 1918.

“only a big boy”:
The Sporting News
, July 25, 1918.

“my wing was a little off”: Wood,
1918
, p. 182.

“will absolutely crush a business”:
Wilmington (
Delaware)
Morning Star
, June 22, 1918.

“the work-or-fight regulations include baseball”: Wood,
1918
, p. 186.

“use of persons not available”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 125.

“not right and not necessary”: Wood,
1918
, p. 188.

“BASEBALL GIVEN REPRIEVE”:
Boston Globe
, July 27, 1918.

“From now on the club owners”: Wood,
1918
, p. 201.

4. Hijinks and Heroes

“Babe Ruth tried to win the bat”:
Boston Record
, September 15, 1918, in Waterman and Springer,
The Year the Red Sox Won the World Series
, p. 64.

First, the owners figured out a way to screw the players: The release of the players as a cost-cutting measure is discussed in detail in Wood,
1918
, p. 220.

“a Johnsonian slap at Frazee”:
Boston Globe
, August 26, 1918.

“an insult to Boston fans”: Michael T. Lynch Jr.,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008), p. 52.

“Someday Frazee will learn”:
Chicago Tribune,
August 27, 1918.

Had the Series taken place a month or so before: For a more detailed discussion of the 1918 World Series, see Glenn Stout, “1918,”
Boston Magazine
, October 1987, pp. 141–47; Glenn Stout, “The Last Champions,”
New England Sport
, Summer 1993, pp. 23–31; and Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century,
pp. 133–134.

“was to keep the Battering Babe Ruth”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 126.

“I hope I don't have to sit”:
Boston Herald and Journal
, September 4, 1918.

The situation was both tawdry and sad: A more complete explanation of the fight that resulted in the death of Ruth's father appears in Leigh Montville,
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
(New York: Broadway, 2006), pp. 75–76.

“Three times this afternoon”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century,
p. 128.

“the effect of the war”:
Boston Globe
, September 10, 1918.

“big Babe Ruth's mighty bat”: Ibid.

“if they concede anything”:
Boston American
, September 11, 1918.

“I made it possible Harry”: Ibid.

“have agreed to play”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 133.

“a lot of other names”:
Boston Globe
, September 11, 1918.

“baseball is dead”:
Boston Post,
September 12, 1918.

“Hooper, Ruth, Mays, Shean, Schang, Scott”:
Boston Globe
, September 12, 1918.

“I have never asked for anything in my life”: Glenn Stout, “The Last Champions,”
New England Sport,
Summer 1993, p. 36.

“the whole gang of them”: William Ecenbarger, “A Field Where the Babe Was No Hero,”
Chicago Tribune
, September 21, 1987.

5. Out of Left Field

“Ruth made a grave mistake”: Robert Redmount,
Red Sox Encyclopedia
(Darby, Penn.: Diane Publishing, 2002), p. 268.

William Howard Taft about becoming the first commissioner of baseball: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 138.

“Looks Like He's Playing Lone Hand”: Ibid.

“The players can sign”: Ibid.

“eliminate the evil of playing double-headers”: Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 66.

“foolish piece of legislation”: Ibid.

“Certified information”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 138.

“a war of extermination”: Ibid., p. 139.

And there was yet one more ugly little factor to consider: For a detailed discussion of the belief in baseball that Frazee was Jewish, the anti-Semitic roots of the so-called Curse of the Bambino, and the impact it has since played on the way Frazee is perceived, see Glenn Stout, “A ‘Curse' Born of Hate,”
ESPN.com
, October 3, 2004; originally appeared in
Boston Baseball
, September 2004, reprinted in the
Elysian Fields Quarterly
, vol. 22, no. 4, 2005.

“A few years ago”: “How the Jews Degraded Baseball,”
Dearborn Independent
, September 10, 1921.

For a more complete discussion on the impact of the ballpark issue in regard to Fenway Park and the Polo Grounds and on the relationship between Ruppert and Frazee and their two ball clubs, see Glenn Stout, “When the Yankees Nearly Moved to Boston,”
ESPN.com
, July 18, 2002,
http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2002/0718/1407265.html
.

“I'll win more games playing in the outfield”: Creamer,
Babe
, p. 187.

he cavorted with local schoolgirls: “School Girls Take Babe Ruth Coasting,”
Boston Globe
, February 4, 1919.

broke up a fight between rowdies: “Babe Ruth Rebukes Rowdies at Dance,”
Boston Globe,
February 9, 1919.

putting his money and his talents into “roller polo”: “Ruth Now Wants to Buy a Polo Team,”
Boston Globe
, March 1, 1919.

By showing up coated in a nice layer of fat: Spring training accounts are a composite made up primarily from daily reports in the
Boston Globe
and
Boston Post
, as are descriptions over the course of the season.

Plant Field: Information on Plant Field is gleaned primarily from
http://www.tampapix.com/plantfield.htm
; a close examination of period pictures; and author's visit to Tampa in February 2015.

“leaned on it”:
Boston Post,
April 4, 1918.

“Ruth Drives Giants to Defeat”:
Tampa Tribune
, April 4, 1919.

“After the game, Youngs marked”: Edward Grant Barrow with James M. Kahn,
My Fifty Years in Baseball
(New York: Coward-McCann, 1951), p. 101.

“Babe doesn't feel right yet”:
Boston Globe
, April 14, 1919.

“The Red Sox are a great ball team”:
Boston Post
, April 19, 1919.

“next longest wallop”:
Boston Globe
, April 20, 1919.

“hit into a hundred double plays”: Creamer,
Babe
, p. 190.

6. Rebellion and Revolution

“As a batter, Ruth is an accident”: John E. Dreifort,
Baseball History from Outside the Lines: A Reader
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), p. 133.

“struck a hard spot on the turf”:
Boston Post
, April 24, 1919.

When he saw Ruth at the park the next day: The description of Ruth's confrontation with Barrow is a composite created from the accounts that appear in Barrow,
My Fifty Years in Baseball
; Creamer,
Babe
; and Wagenheim,
Babe Ruth
.

“the longest fly ever caught”:
Boston Globe
, July 1, 1919.

Carl Mays became unglued: The Carl Mays controversy gets a thorough retelling in Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
; and Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
.

”permanent toothache”: Carl Mays vignette by Allan Wood,
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/99ca7c89
.

“I'll never pitch another ball”: Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 75.

“Mays Refuses”:
Boston Post,
July 20, 1919.

“Barrow Responsible for Red Sox Downward Slide,”
Boston Post
, July 21, 1919.

“Fritz apparently forgot”:
Boston Globe
, July 19, 1919. The story was written by an anonymous Cleveland stringer.

And Lee Fohl lost his job: Untitled story,
Boston Globe
, July 20, 1919, p. 10.

there were shows in production and contracts to be filled: The Internet Broadway Database,
imbd.com
, contains detailed information on all of Harry Frazee's Broadway shows, including length of run, dates, theaters, number of performances, and so forth. Even a cursory search for Frazee on the Web site provides ample evidence of his success as a theatrical entrepreneur over nearly three decades.

“This action of Johnson's is a joke”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 142.

“war to the knife”:
New York Tribune
, August 1, 1919.

“Babe Ruth Act”:
Boston Globe,
August 27, 1919.

“lured by the reputation”:
Boston Post
, September 2, 1919.

Although later held up as an example of the “rape” of the Red Sox: Most of the misinformation and framing of Harry Frazee as a financial failure who purposely “raped” the Red Sox for his financial gain can be attributed to the influence of Frederick Lieb's
The Boston Red Sox
(New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1947). Lieb credits Mel Webb for coining the phrase “the rape of the Red Sox” and presents an incomplete and thoroughly one-sided portrait of Frazee that may be colored by Lieb's belief in a variety of fringe, spiritualist religions with anti-Semitic leanings (Lieb authored several books on spiritualism). A more complete version appears on the author's Web site,
www.glennstout.net
. Interestingly, Frazee's archive incudes a letter from Lieb asking for free tickets for he and his wife to attend a show. Lieb miscasts many of the trades between the Red Sox and Yankees. As demonstrated by subsequent research, including Steve Steinberg's “The Curse of the … Hurlers?,”
Baseball Research Journal
35
,
at the time of the trades, most were equitable. Most of the mistruths regarding the Ruth sale received wide distribution in Dan Shaughnessy's discredited
The Curse of the Bambino
(New York: Dutton, 1990). Later reduced to shorthand by a generation of journalists and self-confessed Red Sox fans eager to preserve franchise myths, an even more misleading account of baseball history emerged.

“the ball never got by”:
Boston Globe
, September 2, 1919.

“It is not often”: Ibid.

“Babe Ruth Equals Home Run Record”:
Boston Globe
, September 6, 1919.

“I could never hit like Ruth”:
Boston Globe
, September 9, 1919.

“put out of baseball”: Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 94.

“Rome may have been”:
Boston Globe
, September 21, 1919.

Then came the ceremonies: Details of the between-game ceremonies for Ruth are described here: “Detail for Ruth Ceremonies,”
Boston Globe,
September 20, 1919.

“attend to your police duties”: Ibid.

7. The Insurrectos

“A rabbit didn't have to think”: Smelser,
The Life That Ruth Built,
p. 172.

“barrels of shekels”:
Boston Globe
, October 7, 1919.

“many of the present seats”:
Boston Globe
, October 24, 1919.

the race driver Barney Oldfield: Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 88.

“did not evince”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 144.

“a blow from which”: Ibid.

a dinner sponsored by the Knights of Columbus:
Boston Globe
, October 15, 1919.

“was played up like a movie actor” and other quotes and descriptions from Ruth's California trip: “No Excuse for Not Knowing Babe's IT,”
The Sporting News
, November 13, 1919.

“I feel I made a bad move”:
Boston Globe
, October 25, 1919.

“Frazee knows what I want”:
Boston Globe
, November 4, 1919.

“Then presumably there will be another lawsuit”: Johnson and Stout,
Red Sox Century
, p. 211.

“the Pipe Dream League”:
The Sporting News
, November 13, 1919.

Frazee, however, likely had the money: The Harry H. Frazee Collection contains a letter from the theatrical firm Sanger and Jordan dated in January of 1920 asking the price to take
My Lady Friends
to Europe. Another letter dated November 11, 1919, offers $8,000 for the world motion picture rights to Frazee's production
A Good Bad Woman
.

“Big Baseball Trades Due”:
Boston Globe
, December 7, 1919.

“had been analyzing the celebrated Mays case”:
The Sporting News
, November 27, 1919.

8. For Sale

the Giants were in pursuit of St. Louis Cardinals infielder Rogers Hornsby: In regard to McGraw's $70,000 bid for Rogers Hornsby, see Jonathan Damore,
Hornsby: A Biography
, (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2004).

Ruppert had already indicated he'd pay as much as $150,000.00 for Ruth: Lynch,
Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
, p. 112.

“losing Ruth is bad enough”: Barrow,
My Fifty Years in Baseball
, p. 108.