1920: Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees

What was the most consequential sale of a baseball player in history?  The answer is Babe Ruth, or the day that the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees:

“After the sale, the Yankees took over Ruth’s contract, which called for a salary of $10,000 per year.

Aware of his value, Ruth had demanded a salary raise, and New York agreed to negotiate a new contract with terms that would satisfy their new slugger.

The deal paid off–in spades–for New York, as Ruth went on to smash his own home run record in 1920, hitting 54 home runs. He connected for 59 homers in 1921, dominating the game and increasing Yankee revenues to the point that the team was able to leave the Polo Grounds (shared with the New York Giants baseball team) and build Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923 and became known as “the house that Ruth built.”

Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the legacy of Frazee’s lopsided trade continued to hover over major league baseball, as the Yankees won 39 AL pennants and 26 World Series titles and the Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series win.

In 2004, the Sox finally shook the “Curse of the Bambino,” coming from behind to beat the Yankees in the AL Championship and beating the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first Series since 1918.”

We will never know what would have happened had Ruth stayed in Boston.   We do know two things that happened because of the sale:

1) The Yankees became the Yankees; and

2)  It was Ruth who saved baseball after the White Sox scandal of 1917-19.   He put fans in the seats again!  He got the fans interested in baseball with his personality and home runs.

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