Was the Babe Ruth trade the Swindle of the Century?

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In 1914 Ruth, 19, was picked up by the minor-league Baltimore Orioles, where he acquired the moniker “Babe” before being sold some months later to the Boston Red Sox. Five years on—as everyone in New England and possibly the universe knows—Sox owner Harry Frazee sold him to the Yankees. As Ms. Leavy shows, this was a more galling transaction than even the most rueful of Sox fans had realized. She turns to the economist Michael Haupert, who notes that part of the deal Frazee made with Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert involved the latter paying $100,000 for Ruth in four installments but also extending a $300,000 loan to Frazee that took him 13 years at 7% to pay off. Six years later Frazee had already shelled out over $100,000 in interest to Ruppert. Consequently, Mr. Haupert concludes with what I fear may be glee, “the Red Sox actually paid the Yankees to take Babe Ruth.”

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