Of Course, the Babe Called This Shot Too

Seventy-nine years ago today, news broke of what remains arguably the biggest baseball player deal of the 20th century.

Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox was going to New York.

In Boston today, you can find old-timers who still haven’t forgiven the Red Sox owner at the time, Harry Frazee.

He was a Broadway producer who’d had a series of failed stage productions. Needing cash, he sized up Ruth, his 24-year-old superstar, as a way out of debt. For Ruth, the Yankees gave Frazee a $300,000 loan and $125,000 in cash. The deal of the century was done.

Ruth learned of it from Yankee Manager Miller Huggins, who waited for him at the 18th hole of the Griffith Park Golf Course.

Huggins told him of the deal, then reminded him he had two years left on a $10,000-per-year Boston contract.

“I want a lot more dough than that,” Ruth said.

After weeks of haggling, Ruth signed a two-year contract for $41,000.

Reacting, an outraged New York Times several days later published an editorial contrasting Ruth’s salary with those of university professors.

The Yankees were quickly rewarded, however.

Ruth hit 54 home runs, drove in 137 runs and hit .376 in 1920. In 1921, he hit 59 home runs, drove in 171 runs and hit .378.

His slugging percentages those two years were .847 and .846, numbers that have not since been approached.