#2

We have counted off 398 moments in The Stud 400 and have now reached the top two moments in the countdown. Fittingly, the top two moments feature the two most impactful players to ever put on a uniform. We’ll start today with Babe Ruth and you should be able to figure out who nailed down the top moment in our countdown, which will be revealed tomorrow.

What we have also come to today is the final moment that happened fully off the field. One of the great things about the countdown—and one of the biggest challenges—was weighing on-field moments with off-field moments. Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” speech was great and all, but it never impacted the outcome of a single game. How could a moment like that be ranked ahead of something like Bill Mazeroski’s 1960 Game 7 walkoff that won a World Series for the Pirates?

As we’ve been saying all along, baseball history is rich not just because of the on-field accomplishments, but because of the 150 years of lore that comes with the game. From the start, BallNine has endeavored to reach every corner of the game and The Stud 400 was created in that spirit.

So now that we’re at the top two of the countdown, here’s a look at the Top 10 moments that happened fully off the field with overall rank in parenthesis.

10: (34) First Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (1939)

9: (25) George Steinbrenner buys Yankees (1973)

8: (18) Roberto Clemente Plane Crash (1972)

7:(13) FDR Pens the Green Light Letter (1942)

6: (12) Tommy John Surgery Invented (1974)

5: (9) Curt Flood & Marvin Miller challenge the Reserve Clause (1969)

4: (7) Lou Gehrig’s Luckiest Man speech (1939)

3: (6) Giants & Dodgers leave New York for California (1957)

2: (3) NL & AL Sign National Agreement, Creating MLB (1903)

And now, Episode XC of The Stud 400:

2. Red Sox Sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees (1920)

If you look at most of the moments at the top of our countdown, many of them are not only huge events in the sport of baseball, but they also transcend sports and become part of American History. It’s only fitting that when we get to the top couple of spots in the countdown, we meet up with Babe Ruth one last time. This time, we’re checking in with a moment that helped elevate the burgeoning Bambino from a superstar to an immortal. Of course we’re talking about the sale of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees.

The Yankees acquisition of Ruth was the first step in building this baseball monster, with the second part coming months later when he gave up pitching full time to focus more on his offense. Ruth’s conversion to the outfield came in at #20 on our countdown, incidentally.

Fans generally know the story of the transaction in some form, but things were a little more complicated than Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needing money to fund the Broadway play My Lady Friends, which eventually was adapted to No, No, Nannette. Let’s go back to 1919 to explain.

Ruth and the Red Sox won the World Series in 1915, 1916 and 1918. Their 1919 team finished in sixth place, but had a pitching staff that featured Ruth, Hall of Famers Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt and stars like Sad Sam Jones and Carl Mays. Ruth was by far their best offensive player and he shuffled around between left field, center field and first base when he wasn’t pitching. The 1919 season was the first time Ruth topped 400 at bats and it paid off when he led the league in home runs (29), RBIs (113), runs (103) and OPS (1.114) and a multitude of nerd stats. He also went 9-5 with a 2.97 ERA in 15 starts.

The important point in all of this was that Ruth did this with a salary of $10,000 per year. It was year one of a three-year, $30,000 contract, which was large for the time. After the season was done that October, Ruth told the Boston Globe that he wouldn’t play for the Red Sox again unless they doubled his salary, starting in 1920, despite the fact that he had two years remaining on his already large contract. Ruth cited that his season gave the Red Sox value that exceeded $10,000. He wasn’t wrong.

Frazee had a different perspective. Basically, he said that the Sox finished in sixth place with Ruth as a two-way monster, so really what good did his season do the team? Frazee said in an interview, “What Boston fans want, I take it, and what I want because they want it is a winning team, rather than a one-man team which finishes in sixth place.”

Frazee reiterated that he did not wish to detract anything from Ruth as a player or the season he had in 1919, he just felt the Red Sox needed more balance and depth. It wasn’t a totally egregious statement and taking into account the unsettled finances of Dead Ball Era baseball franchises, it is plausible to understand the logistics behind it. But still, this is Babe Ruth we’re talking about.

By December of 1919, tensions had built between Ruth and Frazee as neither side would budge. Frazee said in the press that the only player on his team that he wouldn’t trade was future Hall of Famer Harry Hooper and Ruth insisted he wouldn’t play again unless he got what he felt he was worth. By the end of the month, an agreement was in place for Ruth to be sold to the Yankees.

The deal itself was announced on January 5, 1920 and it was one of the first sporting transactions to send shockwaves throughout America. The story ran nationally in every paper, generating huge headlines during a time when baseball wasn’t close to being a national sport. Although the purchase total wasn’t published, it was rumored that the Yankees paid $100,000 to $125,000 for Ruth, the highest price ever paid in a sports transaction. The one thing that remained to be settled was that Ruth still demanded to be paid double what his current contract was valued at. Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert was happy to agree to Ruth’s terms and gave him his raise. In addition, as part of the deal, Ruppert made a loan to Frazee of $400,000 with Fenway Park serving as collateral. That is the money that can be tied to the production of Frazee’s play My Lady Friends.

Frazee said at the time that he would have rather received players in return for Ruth, but no team would be willing to part with a bounty that matched Ruth’s production without tanking the team. Take that for what you will. For his part, Ruth foresaw the partnership with the Yankees. He said that he figured no team would part with enough players to make a fair return and that he knew he would be sold. At that point, he said he figured the Yankees would be the only team who could afford and would be motivated to acquire him. Ruth was right on both parts.

Ruth’s Yankee history speaks for itself. He belted 659 of his 714 career homers for the Yankees and batted .349 across 15 seasons as well. It took a few years, but Ruth finally delivered a World Series to the franchise in 1923 and then repeated the feat in 1927, 1928 and 1932. The Yankees won seven American League pennants during Ruth’s 15 seasons in New York.

The Red Sox on the other hand, went in an entirely different direction. After winning the 1918 World Series with Ruth, the Sox won exactly one American League pennant over the next 48 years. They had a streak where they finished dead last in the American League in nine of 11 seasons between 1922-1932. So while Ruth became a worldwide legend, the Sox wallowed in last place nearly every single season for the rest of Ruth’s career after the trade. The Red Sox, cursed by the trade for 86 years, wouldn’t win a World Series until 2004.

The sale of Ruth changed the course of two of Major League Baseball’s flagship franchises and also helped propel Babe Ruth to heights very few athletes have ever reached. With the sport still reeling from the Black Sox scandal of 1919, Ruth’s stature, among other events, helped bring legitimacy and profit to the sport. He was a national headline maker, a bigger-than-life personality and his accomplishments on the baseball field were jaw-dropping. It is impossible to overstate the impact the sale of Babe Ruth had on the Yankees, the Red Sox, Babe Ruth and the history of Major League Baseball itself.

That being said, the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees is just #2 on our top 400 list. Join us for one last ride in the next installment of The Stud 400 when we finally unveil the top moment in MLB history!