How the Red Sox made the Yankees a dynasty

Many may think that the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees led to the downfall of the Red Sox. That isn’t entirely true. In the following years, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert would raid the Red Sox for more players that laid the foundation of a dynasty and changed the Red Sox from contenders to cellar dwellers for decades to come.

Of course, the sale of Babe Ruth by Red Sox owner Harry Frazee caught the attention as Ruth was a star already even before he joined the ranks of the Yankees. Rumor has it that Frazee sold Ruth for $125,000 to finance his musical No, No Nannette. But that musical only hit Broadway five years after Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees. According to Frazee “Ruth had become simply impossible, and the Boston club could no longer put up with his eccentricities. While Ruth without question is the greatest hitter that the game has ever seen, he is likewise one of the most selfish and inconsiderate men that ever wore a baseball uniform., and the baseball public, according to press reports from all over the country, are beginning to wake up to the fact.”

But the selling of Ruth wouldn’t be the first time Frazee would ship a player to the Yankees. In 1919, talented but troubled pitcher Carl Mays walked off the mound in the midst of a game. So Frazee decided to get rid of another malcontent. This malcontent would play with the Yankees for 4.5 seasons and posted an 80-39 record with a 3.25 ERA and helped the Yankees to reach the World Series three times in a row (1921-1923) and to win it all in 1923.

Frazee had become money-strapped because of World War I. Many Red Sox players went to Europe and Frazee replaced them by buying several players from the Philadelphia A’s for a total of $60,000. Next to that, the 1918 season was shortened due to the war, which made the Red Sox suffer from the loss of revenues. Then in 1919, Joe Lannin, who sold the club to Frazee, demanded the final payments. Eventually, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow went to the Yankees to become front office executive and that is where the so-called “rape of the Red Sox” began.

Wally Schang, who the Red Sox acquired from the Athletics, went to the Yankees in 1921. He would stay with the Yankees for five years and posted a BA of .297. Mike McNally would also join the Yankees in 1921. He stayed four years with the club but didn’t have such a big impact with a batting average of .252. He wasn’t on the postseason roster in 1923 as he hit only .211 during the regular season.
Waite Hoyt was also acquired in 1921. He would be a Yankee for ten years with a 157-98 record and a 3.48 ERA.
Utility infielder Joe Dugan was also raided by the Yankees during the 1922 season as he played only half a season for the Red Sox after they acquired him from the A’s. Dugan would hit .286 during seven years with the club from the Bronx.
The Yankees got pitcher Sad Sam Jones in 1922. In five seasons with the club, he had one losing record in which he lost a career-high 21 games in 1925. But in five years he posted a 64-59 record with a 3.39 ERA.
Everett Scott was also sold to the Yankees. He did not have much of an impact. His best season in the batter’s box was in 1922 when he hit .269.
Herb Pennock was acquired in 1923 and in eleven seasons with the Yankees, he only had one losing season in 1929 (9-11). In those eleven years, he posted a 162-90 record with a 3.54 ERA and won four pennants with the club.

By 1923, Frazee faced a divorce settlement that ordered him to pay his wife $12,000 a year, an extra $40,000 over the first two years, so he sold the Red Sox for $1,000,000 to Bob Quinn but by then, the damage had been done.

Through the decades, several other Red Sox players went to the Yankees but many of them did not have such an impact as the aforementioned players did.