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Authors: Glenn Stout
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11â2, with a three-game lead in the pennant race. About the only player not performing to expectations was first baseman Dick Hoblitzell. Batting cleanup, the ten-year veteran and team captain opened the season 1-for-25. Even worse, heâd been declared eligible for the draft, which may well have weighed on his performance. A notice to report could come at any time.
But the big news came from Frazee. On April 30 the papers announced that Frazee had been offered upward of $100,000 for Ruth, whom the Boston Herald described as a âcolossal southpaw pitcher and hitter most extraordinaire.â Frazee was clearly titillated by the offer, which a few days later he claimed was actually $150,000, saying, âI might as well sell the franchise and the whole club as Ruth.â But there is no solid evidence that the offer, which the press speculated came from either the White Sox or the Yankees, was genuine or just idle talk, even though it later became fashionable among the baseball magnates for nearly all of them to claim to have seen the future and been the first to put in a bid for Ruth.
Frazee knew the power of publicity and may well have been trying to seed a cloud and see if he could make it rainâit was becoming clear the war wasnât about to end anytime soon, and he might have been pondering cutting and running. Besides, the Red Sox would soon play in New York. Pumping up a crowd there, where the Polo Grounds seated 38,000, was simply good business. Even the visitorâs share of a full houseâor close to itâwould make Frazee more than a crowd a quarter of that size in Fenway Park.
If there was an offer, the White Sox and Yankees were the two teams most likely to afford to make such a generous bid, and in 1918, Frazeeâs most likely trading partners. Charley Comiskey, the longtime owner of the White Sox, was flush with cash and generally known to be interested anytime a valuable player was made available. Although he paid his players like serfs, he didnât mind paying big money for them. Thatâs how the game was played.
The New York Yankees were the most intriguing destination. Although Ban Johnson, eager to cut the legs out from the Giantsâ stranglehold on the lucrative New York market, had long promised to help make the Yankees contenders, he had never followed through. Their original owners, William Devery and Frank Farrell, two grotesquely corrupt members of New Yorkâs Tammany Hall political machine, cared about little more than fleecing their own ball club. Although beer baron Ruppert and Huston purchased the team after the 1914 season and stabilized the franchise, the teamâs on-field performance had barely improved. They remained a stepchild of the Giants, and even paid their National League counterparts $60,000 rent each year to use the Polo Grounds. The club had abandoned their original field, Hilltop Park, in 1913 after the Giants rebuilt the Polo Grounds after a fire. The move was intended as a stopgap measure until the Yankees could build their own concrete and steel parkâfire was making the original wooden parks impossible to insureâbut Ruppert and Huston hadnât been able to afford to do that yet. And although Johnson wasnât fond of the Giants, Ruppert, like Frazee, had proven difficult to control, so Johnson was again balking at giving the Yankees significant help.
But Jacob Ruppert was impatient and, unlike his predecessors, a real businessman and savvy politician. The dominant man in the Yankees partnership, Ruppert, whose family had been brewing beer in America for almost a hundred years, was a New Yorker and firmly ensconced in the upper crust of New Yorkâs manufacturing society. He had served in the National Guard, reaching the rank of colonel, and dabbled effectively enough in the politics of Tammany Hall to serve several terms in Congress. The longtime baseball fan had tried to buy both the Giants and Cubs before
But the big news came from Frazee. On April 30 the papers announced that Frazee had been offered upward of $100,000 for Ruth, whom the Boston Herald described as a âcolossal southpaw pitcher and hitter most extraordinaire.â Frazee was clearly titillated by the offer, which a few days later he claimed was actually $150,000, saying, âI might as well sell the franchise and the whole club as Ruth.â But there is no solid evidence that the offer, which the press speculated came from either the White Sox or the Yankees, was genuine or just idle talk, even though it later became fashionable among the baseball magnates for nearly all of them to claim to have seen the future and been the first to put in a bid for Ruth.
Frazee knew the power of publicity and may well have been trying to seed a cloud and see if he could make it rainâit was becoming clear the war wasnât about to end anytime soon, and he might have been pondering cutting and running. Besides, the Red Sox would soon play in New York. Pumping up a crowd there, where the Polo Grounds seated 38,000, was simply good business. Even the visitorâs share of a full houseâor close to itâwould make Frazee more than a crowd a quarter of that size in Fenway Park.
If there was an offer, the White Sox and Yankees were the two teams most likely to afford to make such a generous bid, and in 1918, Frazeeâs most likely trading partners. Charley Comiskey, the longtime owner of the White Sox, was flush with cash and generally known to be interested anytime a valuable player was made available. Although he paid his players like serfs, he didnât mind paying big money for them. Thatâs how the game was played.
The New York Yankees were the most intriguing destination. Although Ban Johnson, eager to cut the legs out from the Giantsâ stranglehold on the lucrative New York market, had long promised to help make the Yankees contenders, he had never followed through. Their original owners, William Devery and Frank Farrell, two grotesquely corrupt members of New Yorkâs Tammany Hall political machine, cared about little more than fleecing their own ball club. Although beer baron Ruppert and Huston purchased the team after the 1914 season and stabilized the franchise, the teamâs on-field performance had barely improved. They remained a stepchild of the Giants, and even paid their National League counterparts $60,000 rent each year to use the Polo Grounds. The club had abandoned their original field, Hilltop Park, in 1913 after the Giants rebuilt the Polo Grounds after a fire. The move was intended as a stopgap measure until the Yankees could build their own concrete and steel parkâfire was making the original wooden parks impossible to insureâbut Ruppert and Huston hadnât been able to afford to do that yet. And although Johnson wasnât fond of the Giants, Ruppert, like Frazee, had proven difficult to control, so Johnson was again balking at giving the Yankees significant help.
But Jacob Ruppert was impatient and, unlike his predecessors, a real businessman and savvy politician. The dominant man in the Yankees partnership, Ruppert, whose family had been brewing beer in America for almost a hundred years, was a New Yorker and firmly ensconced in the upper crust of New Yorkâs manufacturing society. He had served in the National Guard, reaching the rank of colonel, and dabbled effectively enough in the politics of Tammany Hall to serve several terms in Congress. The longtime baseball fan had tried to buy both the Giants and Cubs before
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