The Yankees Announce the Purchase of Babe Ruth

On January 5, 1920, the New York Yankees publicly announced that they had purchased Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. The deal, finalized in late December 1919, sent the most dominant player in baseball to New York for $100,000, payable in four annual installments of $25,000 at six percent interest.

Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed cash to finance his theatrical productions, and Ruth had become increasingly expensive and difficult to manage. Ruth had just set a single-season home run record with 29 in 1919, rewriting expectations about what a hitter could do. Frazee chose the money.

The sale proved to be far more than a simple purchase. On May 25, 1920, Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert made a personal loan of $300,000 to Frazee, secured by a mortgage on Fenway Park itself. The Yankees effectively held a lien on the Red Sox's home ballpark as part of the broader financial arrangement.

Ruth transformed the Yankees immediately. In 1920, his first season in New York, he hit 54 home runs, more than any other American League team hit collectively. The Yankees drew 1.3 million fans, the first team in baseball history to surpass the million mark. Ruth's 60 home runs in 1927 stood as the single-season record for 34 years.

Before Ruth arrived, the Yankees had never won a pennant. With him, they won seven American League pennants and four World Series titles between 1921 and 1932.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, did not win another World Series until 2004, a drought of 86 years that fans eventually called the Curse of the Bambino. The announcement on this January day set both franchises on diverging trajectories that defined twentieth-century baseball.