The Selling of the Babe (31 page)

In fact, they even had a name for it, the old “hoodoo,” the Yankee jinx, because every time it looked as if the Yankees were about to become a great team, or even a good one, something always happened. Discards from New York became stars in other places, while in New York, stars became discards. Chesbro, the best pitcher in the game in 1904, was out of baseball a few years later, his arm dead. Stars like Frank Chance and Wee Willie Keeler and Kid Elberfeld came to the Yankees only to flame out and fail. And when they did develop a star, like Birdie Cree, who for a time was everything Tris Speaker was and more, something always happened—Cree had his wrist broken by a Walter Johnson fastball and was never the same. Owners Frank Farrell and William Devery were crooks who fleeced their own ball club. For years, the Yankees had been what the St. Louis Browns would later become, an afterthought in their own town, virtually colorless, the beat no sportswriter wanted.

Now perhaps it would be different. Now maybe, at last, the Giants had some competition.

The sale was front page news in New York, too, albeit in smaller font, where the reaction ranged from the sober in stodgy papers like the
Times
and
Tribune
to the entirely over the top. In the
American
, Bugs Baer went overboard and noted, none too delicately “But how that gorilla glanded baby can whamm that Spalding [sic] pebble!… Ruth has stung many a homer at the Polo Grounds, but more in sorrow than in anger. Now everything he slams … will be all velvet.” Guys like Baer and Westbrook Pegler and Damon Runyon, who later wrote the show
Guys and Dolls,
bridged the gap between the baseball world and Broadway.

In Boston, that had been a cause of concern about Frazee, but in New York it was accepted, the line between sports and entertainment already blurred, burgeoning celebrity culture an umbrella already covering each pursuit. In Boston, they wrote about baseball in terms of Fenway Park, and what went on in the white lines. In New York, the only borders that mattered were the circulation area, and with guys like Baer already syndicated all over the country, that meant almost everywhere. Ruth hadn't played a second—hell, he hadn't even come to town yet—and just because he was going to play in New York he was already bigger than he ever had been in Boston, or would have been. They had cartoons in the New York papers, too. One in the
New York Evening Journal
showed him as a Colossus, looking benevolently down on his new city.

In New York, anyway, Yankee players sounded nearly as happy as the press. “We'll sure make life miserable for those pitchers,” said Ping Bodie to the
Tribune
. Neither Ruppert nor Huston had to defend the deal. It was the Yankees, after all. They'd never won a pennant, they'd finished third in 1919 but had thoroughly collapsed the second half. In a sense, they were beyond criticism. Anything they did was fine with the press and their fans, as long as they did something.

And the truth was that Ruth was joining a better team than the Red Sox. The 1919 Yankees were ahead of their time and had led the league in home runs with 45. Even according to the standards of the Dead Ball Era, the 1919 Sox had been rather pathetic. Boston hit only four home runs all year clubbed by someone not named Ruth. No one knew it yet, but that was no way to win anymore.

The only criticism that did come Ruppert's way was concerning the price he paid. Oddly enough, in most reports in each city the price was announced as $125,000, a figure neither party bothered to correct but lingers to this day. Even at that level, criticism was tempered. Big money was everywhere in New York. Millionaires lined Fifth Avenue. In Boston, where the Brahmins on Beacon Hill pinched pennies, a dime left on the street was a sign of ultimate extravagance. In New York, they dropped dollars and never bent to the ground.

Ruppert needed the good news, too. The same day the Ruth sale hit the papers, a last-ditch effort to produce near beer, a low-alcohol brew of only 2.75 percent, was shot down by the courts. Prohibition was two weeks away. It was now baseball or nothing.

The only caution expressed anywhere, really, came from Grantland Rice, America's best-known sportswriter, whose syndicated column, “The Sportlight,” appeared in hundreds of newspapers all across the country. Rice alone bothered to take the time to make even the most rudimentary analysis of Ruth's home runs, and he alone noticed something. Rice noted Ruth's three notable home run lapses in 1919, the first lasting 37 days early in the year when he slumped badly, the second of 16, and another in September, of 12 days. “Just what homerless germ became installed in his batting eye is not known,” he wrote. “The ways of genius are beyond any cold, scientific analysis.” The Yankees hoped that observation was true.

For the time being Ruth remained in California and Huggins took his time returning as well. Meanwhile, lacking access to the player or the manager, the New York press focused on where Ruth would play, something that Ruppert and Huston left hanging. Tellingly, they had not abandoned the idea that he might do some pitching—the rotation was a weak spot. In the
Tribune,
W. J. Macbeth wrote that “Babe is willing to ‘double in the brass,' i.e. take his regular turn in the box when he is not cavorting elsewhere.” But unless there was a trade or some other transaction, just where that elsewhere would be was of some concern.

Even though Barrow gushed to the New York papers that first base was Ruth's natural position, that was out. Wally Pipp was considered one of the better first baseman in the league, both at the bag and at the plate. Left field was a possibility, but not only was that Duffy Lewis's spot, but as Macbeth noted, at the Polo Grounds, “Left field is a terrific sun field … and orbs as precious as those sported by Mr. Ruth should scarcely be expected to be placed under unnecessary strain.” Right field was out, he argued “because unless the fences are moved back … he is likely soon to exercise the ambulances,” as Ruth was known to forget about fences when playing the outfield. Still, it was crowded out there, with Lewis, center fielder Ping Bodie, Sammy Vick, the rookie Meusel, and now Ruth. But make no mistake: there would be a spot for Ruth somewhere. A giant contract ensured that.

Before Ruth returned east, however, he—or more likely, Igoe or a Boston sportswriter working on their behalf—decided to throw a few bombs Frazee's way. After all, Ruth still hadn't officially signed with the Yankees, despite Huggins indicating that they had come to an agreement. The criticism from Frazee stung, and Igoe was also likely feeling the heat from his Boston friends for helping steer Ruth down to New York Harbor. Thus far, Ruth had stayed rather quiet. He didn't like the way that story in
The Sporting News
had taken him to task for having such a high opinion of himself.

Ruth struck back in the papers in both cities, claiming that he had always hustled but “Frazee is not good enough to own any ball club.” Ruth apparently forgot about the raises he had gotten after jumping the club, and now complained that he had to buy his wife's ticket on Babe Ruth Day and claimed that all he had received from Frazee was a cigar. He couldn't keep his mouth closed and ended the screed by telling everyone he intended to change his batting style, choke up and go for base hits in 1920 instead of home runs.

It was a telling exchange … and the kind Ruth would soon stop engaging in, more or less. Anytime he got into a public spat in the newspapers, particularly over money, it made Ruth seem small, sometimes even petty, and cut across the image of the boyish, benevolent, freewheeling slugger without a care in the world. In Boston, such back-and-forth exchanges had been part of the reason, anyway, that some had sided with Frazee. When Ruth spoke out, he seemed to see everything through a lens that included only himself, and platitudes about his team and teammates sometimes rang hollow. In New York, he would soon start receiving better advice … and much better press.

Today, he'd have shuffled off to New York almost immediately, glad-handing everybody and making sure he got off to a good start with local journalists, but he stayed in California with Igoe for the better part of a month, golfing in the sun. When he came back, he went first to Boston, mostly for the money, making an appearance at a testimonial dinner in his honor and picking up some spare change making small promotional appearances while sniping at Frazee. He and Igoe wanted part of his purchase price from the Yankees—they figured about 10 or 20 percent was about right, another $10,000 or $20,000. But Frazee had no obligation, legal or moral, to give Ruth part of the sale price. He was property. All ballplayers were.

While Ruth took his time packing, Huggins finally made it back from California, and entertained everyone with tales of Ruth, whom he said he planned to play in right field and that all the talk that Ruth would change his batting style was “bosh.” And sadly, one lineup problem soon solved itself. Yankee third baseman Frank “Home Run” Baker, who before Ruth had passed for a power hitter in the AL, leading the league in home runs three years in a row while with the A's from 1912 through 1914, never striking more than 12 in a season, announced he would retire from the game. His decision had nothing to do with Ruth, however. His wife contracted scarlet fever and died, and his two infant daughters were ill. Although he eventually reconsidered and returned in 1921, for 1920 that opened up a spot at third base, and Huggins indicated he intended to give Meusel a shot there.

Moreover, there remained just one final battle with Johnson. The Yankees filed a suit against him for $500,000, charging that he was trying to drive them from baseball by convincing the Giants to cancel their lease, leading the Insurrectos to reinvigorate the notion of their Pipe Dream League. When the American League meetings resumed on February 10, it was all Sturm und Drang and tumult and shouting. By now, even the Loyal Five were getting weary of Johnson, who seemed unable to keep the league free of litigation. Everyone was exhausted, sick and tired of the whole mess, but the lawsuit was not frivolous and the Yankees had some evidence, enough to force a settlement. Even Johnson's supporters were tired of going to court.

Over the course of one very long day and into the night, the various factions pounded out an agreement. Mays was officially reinstated. The Yankees were awarded third place. The league created a two-man “board of review” that included Ruppert to dispense fines and penalties, stripping Johnson of significant power. If they couldn't reach a consensus, a judge would decide. In exchange, the Insurrectos agreed to drop all their lawsuits and legal actions against Johnson and the league. The Yankees estimated their battles had cost them $60,000. Frazee was probably on the hook for a similar amount, but the war was all but over. Johnson had been defeated. Before the year was out, he would be rendered almost completely powerless, deposed almost completely.

Ruth spent the next month settling his affairs in Boston and preparing to come to New York, arriving just a day before the whole club was scheduled to head south for spring training.

To this point, Ruth had come to Manhattan only as a visitor. Now, he was coming as the Home Run King, ready to claim a new capital.

Neither New York, Babe Ruth, nor the game of baseball would ever be the same again.

 

10

The “Infant Swatigy”

“Everybody interested or connected with baseball in New York has been building castles in the air for the Yankees with Babe Ruth the Foundation. It would be a terrible state of affairs, therefore, if Ruth should fail to come through with the usual home run wallops, would it? But stranger things have happened.”

—The Sporting News

On February 28, 1920, Babe Ruth arrived in New York for the first time as a member of the New York Yankees.

He breezed into the Yankee offices on 42nd Street all bluster and bravado, handing out cigars, talking a mile a minute, greeting everybody and forgetting who they were a half a second later. Huston and Ruppert, were waiting to meet him, as was Huggins. Ruth would play under the terms of his old contract with the Red Sox, for $10,000 a year, but a side deal consisting of bonuses over the next two years totaling another $20,000 would bring his annual salary up to that amount. After a round of pleasantries, they all took off for Pennsylvania Station, where their train to Jacksonville, Florida, was scheduled to leave at 6:20 p.m.

Ruth entered Penn Station the same way he entered the Yankee offices, full of swagger, coat trailing behind him, a porter straining under the weight of his bags, which included his ever-present set of golf clubs, the press and a growing entourage of New Yorkers pressing close and trying to keep up with what was already the most exciting thing in the most exciting city that day. Ruth noticed one thing straight off: this was not Boston. Although he had been to New York, it was different now.

He soon realized that some of the freedoms he'd enjoyed as a member of the Red Sox were no longer available. In Boston, although he'd been somewhat confined by the town, he'd had it easy with the press. They had grown up together, more or less, and Ruth's relationship was pretty free and easy. They asked a few questions, he answered, and that was that.

Now, almost every New York paper had someone on the train and everyone wanted to talk and ask questions and then ask the same questions again. He would eventually get used to it, and the New York press would eventually become his greatest protector, but at first it was a little much, like flies buzzing around his head all day. A later account, undoubtedly ghostwritten by one of those same writers, likely Westbrook Pegler, who by the end of the year would write Ruth's 80,000-word autobiography without hardly using a single word Ruth uttered, nevertheless captured some of Ruth's concern. “After we got away for the spring training, I found myself up against something that puzzled me a lot more than Walter Johnson's speed or Eddie Cicotte's snake ball. This was the sport writer. They asked me all kinds of things about my bat and how I held it and how I swung it; they wanted to look at my eyes and one fellow got me to strip off my shirt to give my back muscles the once over. At first I thought they were kidding me, but it didn't do me any good to find out they weren't.”