This Day in History: The Sox Sell the Babe
Whoops.
On this day in 1920, the Boston Red Sox made one of the biggest blunders in sports transaction history when they sold Babe Ruth to New York for somewhere between $100,000 and $125,000 in cash.
Exact financials depend on who you ask. The Boston Globe lede reported “a cash price of probably $100,000 and possibly more,’’ while History.com reports the deal included $125,000 in cash.
“The price was something enormous, but I do not care to name the figures,’’ Frazee told the Globe. “It was an amount the club could not afford to refuse.
Regardless, the sale sparked the Yankees’ rise as the dominant baseball organization of the 20th century, and consequently became the iceberg that sank Boston’s World Series dreams for another 84 years.
Red Sox owner Harry Frazee (a theater owner from New York, ironically) was ridiculed for selling Ruth, and rumors that the Ruth sale was used to pay for Frazee’s production of “No, No, Nanette’’ only fueled the fire.
Frazee sold the team in 1923, and generations of Red Sox fans suffered until the “Curse of the Bambino’’ was shattered by a group of self-proclaimed “Idiots’’ in 2004.
The man who assembled that team of “Idiots’’ is now looking for a repeat performance in Chicago, where the Cubs have gone 106 years without a World Series, plagued by Billy Goats and foul balls down the 3rd base line.
Thanks to Theo Epstein, January 5th is just an unfortunate anniversary in Red Sox history, not a constant reminder the ineptitude that crippled Boston baseball for decades.
The Curse is gone, Boston has won 3 championships in 11 years, but this day in history is a reminder that the good times didn’t always seem so good (so good, so good).
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