The date was January 3, 1920. The Yankees had just completed long negotiations with the Boston Red Sox to purchase the best player in the game, one George Herman “Babe” Ruth. By selling Ruth to the Yankees, the Sox accomplished two goals: they unloaded a player who had become a distraction, and saved themselves quite a few dollars.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The sports media of the day hailed the transaction as one of the most brilliant in the game up to that time. Over the course of time, many of the details surrounding the Ruth deal have been distorted and misconstrued. One wonders, however, how TODAY’S media would have covered such an Earth-shattering event – if the beat reporters, the all-sports stations and ESPNs had been in existence back in the day.

Ever eager to further the advance of science, this intrepid reporter threw the events into the Time-Space Transmogrifier © (patent pending) and the results were quite frightening…

Late December, 1919

Rumors spread through the media and baseball chat forums that the Yankees are close to making a deal with the Red Sox for Babe Ruth. Salary concerns and Ruth’s ‘less-than-professional’ demeanor have him on the outs with Sox owner Harry Frazee, who secretly begins negotiations with Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert. Within hours, fans on both Yankee and Red Sox web sites start both salivating and panicking simultaneously.

January 1, 1920 – Day One

The rumors reach a fever pitch when several web sites begin posting that the Yankees are close to getting Ruth. Initial reactions of disbelief turn to feelings of hope and optimism in New York – loathing and despair in Boston. Neither team will confirm the deal. There are rumors that Frazee (a huge fan of the theater) needs cash to invest in a new musical called, “No, No Nanette”. In reality, he has been visited in his sleep by the image of a futuristic Rosie O’Donnell, who has piqued his interest with talk of a production called “Taboo” to take place 83 years in the future. Based on the sight of Boy George in clown makeup, he figures it’d be a good investment.

January 2, 1920 – Day Two

Things reach a fever pitch when the Yankees confirm that they have agreed – in principle – to the Ruth deal. The only thing preventing the deal’s completion is approval from Commissioner Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis. This is made difficult by the fact that the recently-appointed Landis hasn’t actually taken office yet.

Throughout New York, the sounds of gleeful anticipation are balanced by the sounds of peristaltic up-chucking all over New England. The NY Post front page reads “Babe-alicious”, while the Boston Globe proclaims, “Ruthless”.

January 3, 1920 – Day Three

It’s official – Babe Ruth is a Yankee. Somehow, the still-unoccupied Commissioner’s office approves the deal. Throughout the sports world, reporters attempt to compare the Ruth-led Yankees to previous great Yankee teams, but they cannot find any.

The reactions are about what you would expect: Yankee fans are ecstatic (aside from the one or two self-loathers who just cannot allow themselves to be happy), and Red Sox fans are apoplectic. Sox owner Frazee realizes what he has done, and immediately calls the Yankees “a team that has gone so insanely, ridiculously far, FAR beyond the resources of all the other teams, that even we fell victim to their seemingly endless reign of evil”. Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert responds by saying, “we understand that Henry Frazee must be embarrassed, but tough noogies. Good luck with that Broadway play thing”.

Yankee detractors are quick to dampen the euphoria by pointing out that the team’s rotation is too weak for the Ruth trade to mean anything in the grand baseball scheme of things. After all, the Yankees intend to move Ruth to the outfield, making the top three starters all right-handers. WFAN host Mike Francesca is quick to point out that the Yankees hadn’t won a World Series with three right-handers in the rotation since…well, they hadn’t won a World Series yet at all, but trust him – this was gonna be bad, BAD news.

Elsewhere, ESPN's Sportscenter begins a daily series on the strengths of the Red Sox rotation vs. the Yankees’ rotation that will run until mid-July. ESPN.com’s Jim Caple is placed on regular enema therapy. NY Daily News reporter Mike Lupica calls the Yankees “payroll pigs”, then sits in a corner and cries since HIS favorite team will not even exist for another 42 years.

January 4, 1920 – Day Four

And so, the Babe Ruth era begins. The Yankees introduce The Babe at a Yankee Stadium press conference. The Babe is peppered with questions as to how he feels about being moved to a position he's not familiar with. He insists it’s not a big deal, but the back pages of the papers interpret his hunched shoulders as an indication that he’s lying. In reality, the jersey they used at the podium didn’t fit. Ruppert bemoans the small press space, and starts hinting that he may want a new ballpark.

In the other media, ESPN continues their nightly series on the Red Sox’s pitching superiority. Several photographers stampeded into particle board at the press conference are laid to rest. The Post’s Phil Mushnick claims that some Yankee fans feel really bad about the Ruth deal, but he cannot be totally sure because he couldn’t hear them clearly over all the high-fives.

January 5, 1920 – Day Five

A new controversy erupts when the media reports that relations between Ruth and his former Sox teammate (and current Yankee) Carl Mays are “frosty”. Ruth quickly corrects the masses when he explains that he was simply overheard ordering a “Frosty”.

Concurrently, Red Sox pitcher Herb Pennock pops up on a Red Sox message board to blast the Yankees and claim that the Sox are still the “team to beat”. Herb neglects to mention the fact that the Sox blew their chance to keep Ruth. Not surprisingly, Boston finishes the 1920 season at 72-81 – with New York at 95-59.

January 6, 1920 – September 30, 1934

Despite all the panic that the Ruth deal would herald “the end of Baseball as we know it”, two things were accomplished: the Yankees took the best player in the game and put him on the biggest sports stage in the world. In the process, they changed history AND set into motion a franchise attitude of winning and success that continues to this day.

There are some things that were as true then as they are now. The only real detractors to the Ruth deal were the people that were jealous of the Yankees possessing such a crown jewel - and peripherally – the Red Sox and their fans, once they realized the significance of what they had done.

Then, as now, the Yankees saw a chance to get the best player there was, and knew that to not have done so would have been the bigger mistake. They took a lot of flack from the rest of baseball, but didn’t care. People came out to see The Babe and his teammates, the same way they will come out to see A-Rod and the rest of this 2004 team. When the dog days of summer kick in, and the Stadium is filled, the buzzing lights will illuminate the green grass as dusk falls, and a Rodriguez-to-Jeter-to-Giambi double play will elicit screams of joy from the assembled masses. It will be magic.

The kind of magic that even the most cynical hysterics of 1920 and 2004 won’t be able to tarnish.

 

Pete is a regular contributor to NYYFans.com and can be reached at PeteRFNY@NYYFans.com