The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

by Montville, Leigh

  The two men were thrown together in an arranged marriage. Each much rather would have bought the New York Giants, the glamour team of the city, the team of John McGraw and Christy Mathewson and championships. Ruppert, in fact, had tried and failed in attempts to buy the team in both 1903 and 1912. He often told the story about how he once practiced with the Giants in his teens and learned by taking only one of catcher Buck Ewing’s bullet throws to second base, feeling the sting in his hand, wondering if any bones had been broken, that he would never be a major league baseball player. Huston, mad with his new money, mad with his new life, also had loved baseball as a boy and tried to buy into the game several times with his mad money, most recently with the Chicago Cubs in 1913. (Ruppert was offered the Cubs but declined, saying he wouldn’t be interested in “anything so far from Broadway.”)

  When the Yankees, the very poor relations of New York sport, came up for sale at the end of the 1914 season, a friend in Cincinnati, Bill Fleischmann, casually suggested to Ruppert that he join with Huston to buy the team. Ruppert hadn’t seen the team play more than four or five times, mostly to take a look at American League stars like Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson, but he was interested. He contacted Huston. The two men didn’t know each other, didn’t meet until they started talking about the deal, but both knew McGraw of the Giants and both loved baseball. This love—and money—brought them together.

  On December 31, 1914, at the Hotel Wolcott, they bought the Yankees for $450,000. Ruppert brought a certified check and an attorney to handle his half of the transaction. Huston came alone and reached into his pocket for a large roll of money and counted out 225 thousand-dollar bills.

  “For $450,000,” Ruppert said later in the Germanic accent, “we got an orphan ball club without a home of its own, without players of outstanding ability, without prestige.”

  By December 1919, the partnership had survived five somewhat acrimonious seasons, the Colonels arguing with each other about almost everything, and the team had shown some progress. There were no championships, but the Yankees had finished a respectable third in 1919. The Colonels’ money had allowed them to pry away a player here, a player there, from teams that had considerably fewer resources.

  Two of their deals had been made with the Red Sox. At the end of the 1918 season, they had picked up pitchers Ernie Shore and Dutch Leonard and outfielder Duffy Lewis, all back from the war, for four players and $15,000. In the middle of the 1919 season, they had added pitcher Carl Mays for pitchers Allan Russell and Bob McGraw and $40,000.

  The Mays deal was controversial. A troubled and disliked figure on the Red Sox, Mays became upset when his teammates made some errors behind him and put him in the hole, 4–0, in the second inning of a game against the White Sox in Chicago. When catcher Wally Schang, trying to throw out a runner trying to steal second, inadvertently hit Mays in the back of the head with the ball, that was the final perceived indignity. Mays finished the inning, batted in the bottom half, walked, didn’t score, came back to the dugout, went straight to the clubhouse, and said he never would play for the Red Sox again. He went home.

  Manager Ed Barrow prepared to suspend the pitcher, but Red Sox owner Harry Frazee told him to wait. Frazee said he could trade Mays to the Yankees. And he did.

  It was an easy deal to make because he was a friend of Col. Huston’s and friendly enough with Col. Ruppert. He was, after all, another New York guy, a resident of Park Avenue, another fast runner on the Manhattan social map. Like Huston, Frazee was a self-made man, having started his theater career by working in the box office and as an usher at the local theater in Peoria, Illinois, when he was 16 years old. He was on the road a year later as an advance man for a touring production. He slowly graduated into producing his own shows around the country and finally landed on Broadway. He had toured the country promoting a performance involving boxers Jim Jeffries and Jim Corbett. He had been part of the promotion for the fight between Jack Johnson and Jess Willard in Havana.

  He teamed with silent partners Hugh Ward and G. M. Anderson in 1917 to buy the Red Sox. The price was $400,000, half of that in a down payment, the rest in notes to Lannin that the partners thought could be repaid from gate receipts and profits from the team. Boston fans worried about the arrival of out-of-town owners, wondered if they would have the proper commitment to winning, but grew to appreciate Frazee’s efforts. An attempt at purchasing Walter Johnson from the Washington Senators in the first weeks on the job gave him some instant credibility. His actions in quickly replacing the players who went to the war, leading to the 1918 pennant, further helped his image.

  The Mays deal was a reminder of where he lived. It wound up binding him closer together with the Colonels of New York. They had been part of a three-team coalition (Charles Comiskey and the White Sox were the third partner) in assorted battles with American League president Ban Johnson. The Mays deal became a large battle. Johnson ruled the trade invalid and ordered Mays back to the Red Sox. The Colonels and Frazee resisted. Mays joined the Yankees and not only pitched but pitched well, finishing with a 9–3 record in the second half of the season. Johnson refused to distribute the money the Yankees had won for finishing third.

  A round of injunctions and restraining orders was issued, everything winding up in court. Johnson in the process was forced to make the embarrassing admission that he not only was the league president but also owned a considerable interest in the Cleveland Indians. The Yankees and Red Sox won the battle, the trade was allowed to stand, and Johnson’s power diminished as the third-place money was awarded, but the battle lines deepened. Frazee and the Colonels shared the same bunker.

  That made a deal for Babe Ruth much easier to be arranged. The accepted version of how it happened when it happened was that the Colonels asked manager Miller Huggins what he needed to contend for a championship in 1920. Huggins replied, “Get me Babe Ruth.” The Colonels then sent Huggins to Frazee to sound out the possibilities. The manager came back and said Ruth was available for $125,000, the largest price ever paid for a baseball player. The Colonels gulped—especially Ruppert—and made the deal.

  Frazee’s explanation was that he didn’t want to deal with the “eccentricities” of his star player anymore. He said that Ruth’s salary demands were far out of line, especially with two years to run on an existing contract, and that his behavior was a detriment to team morale. The club would be better off without him, a true team instead of ballplayers eclipsed by a petulant star. The money would free up possibilities to sign other, more team-oriented stars.

  Missing in the story was the obvious friendship between the principals involved. Frazee eventually would be called “the Corporal” by at least one writer in New York. Another writer would say that Frazee, Ruppert, and Huston were “as close as three fingers on the same hand.” Would Huggins have to act as an intermediary in this kind of relationship? Also missing, not public knowledge until ten months later, was the fact that a $300,000 personal loan from Ruppert to Frazee was a major part of the deal, with Fenway Park used as collateral by the Boston owner.

  A much easier scenario can be imagined. Frazee and Huston were not only friends but Broadway drinking buddies, traveling the same glad round of restaurants and parties. Huston was the drinking patron of the New York sportswriters, buying rounds at the bar, always good for a colorful quote. He was called “the Iron Hat” in the papers, an inside nickname that referred not only to his ever-present derby hat but also to his construction background. Frazee, rapidly heading toward the same bulky size as Huston, was known as a heavy drinker.

  “Harry Frazee never drew a sober breath in his life, but he was a hell of a producer,” lyricist Irving Caesar, who helped write “Tea for Two” and other songs for Frazee’s musical productions, once said. “He made more sense drunk than most men do sober.”

  Alcohol was the machine oil of the time in the baseball industry, despite the approach of Prohibition. Drinking was everywhere. Ban Johnson was an obvious drunk. Ruppert, as presid
ent of the United States Brewers Association, had argued against the coming law, claiming that beer was “a liquid food, a healthful beverage, and in no way injurious to the system.” Frazee and Huston were definite believers in that philosophy.

  Deals and decisions in the game routinely were made late at night after much consumption of liquid food. Would it be outlandish to consider that was the case here? The idea that the consumption of liquid food by friends, combined with conversation about personal problems and possible solutions (like a $300,000 loan), resulted in the trade of a notable, home run–hitting consumer of liquid food would seem to have great logic.

  The deal was completed in secrecy, the papers signed on December 26. Nothing appeared in the newspapers until January 6. The timing was interesting too. Everything was completed in the midst of holiday parties, the most active time on the social circuit.

  The deal could be toasted legally before the new law on liquid food took effect on January 16, 1920.

  Part of the delay in announcing that the Babe was a Yankee was the stipulation that the Colonels wanted to be sure that the Babe wanted to be a Yankee. He was still on the West Coast with Helen, enjoying the sun and churning out more palm tree quotes for the salary squabble he did not know he already had won. The Colonels dispatched manager Huggins to Los Angeles to inform the big man that the deal had been made and to talk him into acceptance.

  Huggins was one of the prime focuses of conflict between the Colonels. Huston didn’t like him, didn’t want him as manager. Ruppert had hired him in 1918 on the advice of Ban Johnson while Huston was in France during the war. Huston had argued across the Atlantic Ocean for Uncle Wilbert Robinson, who was “more his style in character and architecture,” New York Times columnist John Kieran said. Ruppert nevertheless hired Huggins, whom he didn’t really know, then stuck his heels in deep and defended his decision.

  Huggins was a small, frail man, roughly 5-foot-2 and 120 pounds, a pipe smoker and a thinker. He had made himself a successful major league second baseman with the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals through ingenuity and industry. He scrunched down at the plate, offering a tiny strike zone, and led the National League in walks four times. He was a base stealer, a pest. Looking for an advantage, he made himself into a switch-hitter. A natural right-hander, he concentrated in the off-season on doing everything left-handed, from eating and drinking to opening doors and chopping wood. He was a rarity in the game, an educated man who had graduated from law school at the University of Cincinnati in 1902 before he started his baseball career.

  From 1913 to 1917, prior to joining the Yankees, he had managed the underfinanced Cardinals well enough to attract AL president Johnson’s notice and subsequently be introduced to Ruppert. He was 40 years old when he took the train west to see Ruth, convinced that the big man was the answer for his ball club. He told friends he thought Ruth could hit “at least” 35 home runs as an every-day player. Despite the fact that the slap-and-run game had been perfect for his small body and limited skills, Huggins was a converted believer in the long ball, a visionary.

  When he reached Los Angeles, he set out to find Ruth. His research led him to Griffith Park, where the Babe was playing golf. This was on January 4, 1920. Not wanting to interrupt the Babe’s golf, Huggins waited at the clubhouse. Ruth, when he arrived, was still upset with some transgressions suffered on the 18th hole. The meeting did not start well.

  “I don’t have any time,” Ruth said. “I have somewhere to go.”

  Huggins said he should make time. There were some things that had to be discussed.

  “Have I been traded?” Ruth asked.

  Huggins indicated that, yes, a trade had been made but still had to be formalized. That was why he had come west. Ruth went into his salary demands. Huggins said they could be addressed when the contract was drawn up. He then began to talk about what he expected from Ruth in the manner of personal behavior. He tried to be fatherly, to help Ruth correct his wanton lifestyle. Ruth would have none of it.

  He forever had a bias against small men. He tended to bully them, to make them the butt of many of his practical jokes. He paid small men no heed, as if physical size were the answer in all arguments, the small man’s opinion worth nothing without the bulk to back it up. Huggins immediately was added to the small-man list.

  The contract was signed the next day at the Hotel Rosslyn. Ruth received the $20,000 per year for two years he wanted, a $20,000 bonus making up the difference in his existing contract. The news was announced in New York and Boston and made headlines across the country. The largest amount ever paid for a baseball player had been $55,000 for Tris Speaker by the Cleveland Indians. The figure for Ruth more than doubled that.

  Were the Colonels crazy? No one in New York thought so. “The two Colonels—Ruppert and Huston—were praised on all sides for their aggressiveness and liberality in landing baseball’s greatest attraction,” the Times said. “If the club, strengthened by Ruth and by other players the owners have in mind does not carry off the flag, it will not be the fault of the owners.” Was Frazee crazy? Opinion in Boston was divided. Red Sox fans universally—and often hysterically—thought Frazee had made a mistake. The 11 newspapers mostly took a more analytical view, especially the sportswriters, many siding with the owner.

  “Ruth was 90 percent of our club last summer,” Johnny Keenan, leader of the Royal Rooters, said from the fans’ perspective. “It will be impossible to replace the strength Ruth gave the Sox. The Batterer is a wonderful player and the fact that he loves the game and plays with his all to win makes him a tremendous asset to a club. The Red Sox management will have an awful time filling the gap caused by his going. Surely the gate receipts will suffer.”

  “Stars generally are temperamental,” the Boston Herald said as a voice of calm. “This goes for baseball and the stage. They often have to be handled with kid gloves. Frazee has carefully considered the Ruth angle and believes he has done the proper thing. Boston fans undoubtedly will be up in arms but they should reserve judgment until they see how it works out.”

  “It is believed that practically every man on the Boston team will be pleased at Ruth’s sale to New York,” columnist Paul Shannon wrote in the negative in the Boston Post. “Popular as Ruth was, on account of his big-heartedness, the men nevertheless realize that his faults overshadow his good qualities.”

  Frazee continued to campaign to his disgruntled electorate. His showmanship had to be put in reverse, unselling his prime attraction. He sounded like a politician discussing an opponent in a Democratic primary in South Boston.

  “While Ruth, without question, is the greatest hitter the game has ever seen, he is likewise one of the most selfish and inconsiderate men that ever wore a uniform,” Frazee said. “Had he possessed the right disposition, had he been willing to take orders and work for the good of the club like the other men on the team, I never would have dared let him go. Twice during the past two seasons Babe has jumped the club and revolted. He refused to obey orders of the manager.”

  The Babe blustered from the West Coast in response. He blustered that he now wanted a part of the purchase price. He blustered that Frazee was a skinflint, so cheap that he’d charged Mrs. Babe Ruth for a ticket to Babe Ruth Day at Fenway Park. He blustered that, okay, now he was glad to be going to New York because he didn’t want anything to do with H. Harry Frazee.

  “Frazee sold me because he was unwilling to meet my demands,” Ruth said, “and to alibi himself with the fans he is trying to throw the blame on me.”

  In the middle of all the bluster, all the noise from everywhere, Miller Huggins quietly made the most important announcement of all. He said in California that the Babe’s days as a pitcher were done. No man can spread himself between pitching and playing the outfield. The Babe was an every-day player now. He was a hitter.

  Frazee’s real reasons for selling Ruth would be debated for generations. At the time the deal was made his statement to the newspapers was pretty much accept
ed. Frazee’s contention that Ruth, good as he might be, was contentious, greedy, and a squeaky wheel had some truth to it. Perhaps, from that view, it was possible the slugger presented as many negatives as positives for the Red Sox in the future. The key argument was that this was a baseball move that would be followed by other baseball moves to strengthen the franchise. As news came out about the $300,000 loan, however, and as other moves proved fruitless, as history unwound, and Frazee dealt away other stars, the analysis became quite different.

  Frazee was in a financial bind. That was the evening story. On November 1, he missed a $125,000 mortgage payment to Lannin. Forced to choose between his two moneymaking businesses—baseball and the theater—he chose the theater, his first and biggest passion. The money from the sale of Ruth, plus the money from the loan, was used to pay off Lannin and keep Frazee’s theatrical interests viable, notably the staging of the hit Broadway musical No, No, Nanette in later years, which proved to be a tremendous hit and made him millions of dollars.

  Frazee was cast in the easily constructed role of a villain, “the Man Who Sold Babe Ruth,” a Boston version of Judas Iscariot. For years, long after all the characters in the drama were dead, Frazee would be seen as the despicable cur with mustache and top hat, knocking on the front door in the middle of a December night to foreclose on the widow woman and her children. Babe Ruth for No, No, Nanette. This was Frazee’s Folly.

  Then, in the 1990s, a revisionist look appeared. Wait a minute, No,No, Nanette didn’t debut on Broadway until September 16, 1925. That was more than five years after the deal for Ruth. How could the two events be connected? Frazee’s heirs, especially grandson Harry Frazee III, insisted that the owner had been unfairly maligned. He wasn’t selling Ruth for personal gain. His finances were fine. The refusal to pay off Lannin was not a sign of financial weakness; it was a dispute, tied to payments Frazee thought Lannin should have made to the American League as part of a settlement with the now-defunct Federal League. Frazee simply was making shrewd business decisions, working mainly to thwart the efforts of American League president Ban Johnson, who wanted him out of Boston. He had been put in a box and was fighting his way out.