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1920 BOSTON RED SOX ...
After the 1919 baseball season, Babe Ruth capitalized on his popularity by barnstorming around the country, hitting home runs and landing in Los Angeles where he tested the waters of the film industry. He earned $10,000 on this trip, which combined, with his baseball salary, bonus and other income, pushed his annual take toward $30,000 for the year. That was not enough for Ruth, because he still felt underpaid and wanted $20,000 for his contract in 1920 from the Red Sox. At the time Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins, who each earned $15,000 annually topped the scale. President Harry Frazee said that Ruth was under contract and if he didn't want to play in 1920, that was fine with him.
Frazee had never shown any patience in the theater business for those who failed to live up to their contracts or tried to squeeze him. The show must go on and the players were interchangeable and secondary to the larger production. He had fired performers and writers who had failed to live up to their contracts and would continue to do so. To Frazee, ballplayers were no different and in the post Federal League era, baseball contracts were dropping, so Frazee felt that if he caved into Ruth, every player on the team would want more money. On December 26, 1919 Frazee agreed to sell Babe Ruth to New York for a total of $100,000. $25,000 would be paid in cash and three $25,000 payments were to be paid at one year intervals with 6% interest. The deal was contingent upon the Yankees getting Babe under contract. Frazee and Yankee owner Jake Ruppert also reached another agreement. Ruppert agreed to help Frazee by loaning him $300,000 with Fenway Park as the security. He accepted the Yankee offer of cash and notes, only after manager Ed Barrow informed in there were no players on the Yankee roster that he wanted. The deal worked for Frazee on several fronts. It rid him of a problem, strengthened his coalition with New York in the war against Ban Johnson, and gave him the cash he knew he'd need, to rebuild his club. New York manager Miller Huggins traveled to California and got Babe to agree to a contract and accept a $20,000 bonus, and the deal was announced on January 5, 1920. The news hit Boston hard, but none were hit harder than the Boston sportswriters, who cherished Ruth as good copy. The deal was front-page news. Frazee was prepared to be criticized and released a 1500 word statement that outlined his thinking. Local baseball figures like Hugh Duffy, Bill Carrigan and Fred Tenney all agreed with Frazee.
The deal also had other implications that made sense to Frazee. It provided him with operating capital and a reserve if Ban Johnson tried to mount a challenge to his right to operate the franchise. The trade was not one-sided because the Yankees ran the risk of taking on Ruth and therefore they did not pay the full amount to the Red Sox in cash. They were concerned about their relationship with the New York Giants from whom they rented the Polo Grounds as their home ballpark. Ruppert paid Frazee in installments so he could build start to himself a brand-new ball park. The Yankees needed a draw to lure fans away from the Giants, and in the Polo Grounds with a short right field fence, Ruppert felt that Babe would hit better than anywhere else. But he also felt that apart from his behavioral problems, Babe's lifestyle did not suggest that he would have a long career. At a time where players were washed up to 30 years old, the 25-year-old Babe was growing heavier and more out of shape each year. Most observers thought that his pitching career was over and his continued improvement at the plate was no certainty. He still had trouble hitting left-handed pitchers and was prone to prolonged batting slumps. Had the Babe stayed in Boston, he may still have become the greatest home run hitter of his era, but he never would have approached the marks he set with the Yankees. Of additional significance was the fact that the lighter and livelier baseball, which later inflated his power numbers, and not yet been introduced. There was simply no way to predict what Babe Ruth would later become. The Yankees were taking on a huge and expensive gamble. Ruth was not a sure bet. The loan was another matter entirely. The agreement was not between the two baseball teams, but was between Ruppert and Frazee themselves. The loan that secured using Fenway Park as collateral, was risk-free because the land on which Fenway Park sat was worth more than the amount of loan. Frazee wanted the loan because he was eyeing the purchase of a New York theater and Ruppert was offering him more flexible terms then was a bank. It Frazee defaulted on his loan, he could always rent Fenway Park back from Ruppert. A bank would sell it off, and the most likely buyers would have been Ban Johnson and his supporters. A long incorrect accepted interpretation of the sale of Ruth and the others to New York contended that Frazee was in financial trouble and used the proceeds to finance his stage interests, which eventually paid off in the success of the play, "No No Nanette". The one fact that was proven to be correct, was that Boston was left with a second rate franchise. Frazee became the villain and yet the truth is a more complicated story. Frazee had no financial trouble whatsoever. All evidence indicated otherwise. Stories that he was one step away from the poor house were created years later by Boston writers who hated him from the very beginning because he was a New Yorker. Frazee never bothered to correct the perception because he didn't care. It was still sound business to have baseball owners have their wealth underestimated. It served Frazee well, for some in Boston to believe that he was broke, because it held down salaries. The truth is that Frazee had many balls in the air. He had a theater chain, three Schubert theatres that he leased, his own two theaters, a real estate management firm, a real estate investment company, and a stock brokerage company. If anything, in 1920 his stock was rising. His new play, "My Lady Friends" opened to rave reviews, eventually running for 228 performances. At the time of Babe Ruth's sale to New York, the show was earning Frazee $3000 each week. He put the play on the road and his engagement in Boston was similarly successful.
The other financial problem he had, was with the previous owner of the Red Sox, Joe Lannin. Lannin had floated Frazee a loan to purchase the Red Sox. In May 1919, the two had a dispute and Frazee stopped making interest payments. Then on November 1, 1919 he purposely missed a payment on the note for $125,000. Lannin demanded his payment and Frazee ignored him. The reason for these non-payments, was that Frazee thought that a $30,000 share of the American League's settlement with the Federal League was the responsibility of Lannin to pay and not his. Three days after the sale of Babe Ruth, Frazee began rebuilding his club, trading Braggo Roth and Red Shannon to Washington for a veteran infielder Kid Foster, outfielder Mike Menosky, and left-handed pitcher Harry Harper. Harper was the key to the deal. He was only 24 years old and considered one of the best young pitchers in the American League. On February 1, 1920 the Yankees filed suit against Ban Johnson for $500,000 over the deal made with the Red Sox for Carl Mays in 1919. Johnson had withheld the money that the Yankees had earned for finishing in third place in 1919, and failed to recognize games in which Mays had pitched for New York. When the league winter meetings started in Chicago, the war heated up again. Johnson's supporters backed off and he reinstated Mays and gave the Yankees their money, because he did not want to be involved in a costly litigation. In return, the Yankees dropped their lawsuits. Johnson still was not surrendering, but was out to get revenge against Ruppert and his supporters, Harry Frazee and Charles Comiskey.
At the winter meeting, Johnson met with Lannin, who now owned the International League's Buffalo team. The two men discovered that they had a common enemy in Harry Frazee. On February 9th, as Frazee was undermining Johnson at the meetings in Chicago, Lannin was doing the same to Frazee in Boston. He slapped a lien on Fenway Park for Frazee's non-payment of the loan. Unless Lannin was paid off by March 3rd, he'd sell Fenway Park at auction. Frazee was caught off guard and returned to Boston amid rumors that he was selling the team. Lannin next got an injunction that barred Frazee from getting any more players, pending payment of his loan. As spring training was about to begin, the Red Sox no longer had Babe Ruth and had nobody to replace him. Ban Johnson thought he had Frazee cornered and now returned to the fight. He came to Boston intent on putting together a group to buy the Red Sox on the cheap, and get rid of Frazee for good. But Frazee spurned offers for the team, made some legal maneuvers against Lannin, to get more time, and started making plans for the 1920 baseball season.
The Red Sox begin spring training in total disarray. As Frazee had feared, catcher Wally Schang and thirdbaseman Oscar Vitt had followed Ruth's lead, and were holdouts. In spite of all this the Red Sox played good baseball in spring training. Joe Bush's arm felt better and holdovers from the 1919 team, Herb Pennock, Sam Jones and Waite Hoyt, supplemented by Allen Russell, and now Harry Harper, gave the Red Sox the deepest pitching staff in the league. While the offense was not particularly potent, the team knew how to manufacture runs and their defense was still superb. Herb Pennock (16-13, 3.68 ERA) was the Sox ace. He gained a reputation for needing four days of rest between starts and could win if called on to pitch sooner, but in subsequent starts his curveball lost its fine edge. Sam Jones' workload increased to 274 innings but he again had a losing record (13-16, with an ERA that grew to 3.94.) He often pitched very well indeed, but was inconsistent and also often suffered from poor run support. It was a comeback year for Joe Bush and he put together another 15-15 won-loss record. Stuffy McInnis (.297 BA) again made just seven errors in 148 games for a league-leading .996 fielding average. Harry Hooper batted .312 with a .470 (SA).
The Red Sox opened the season with two wins against Washington. In the opener, which was played at Fenway on April 15th, Allen Russell bested Walter Johnson, 7 to 6. The next game was a 2 to 1 Sox victory that took 14 innings for the Sox to win. In the 14th, Kid Foster was given a free pass to start it off. Mickey Devine followed with a base hit and Harry Hooper finished things off with a smash to left center for the walk-off victory. Then on Patriots' Day, April 19th, the Yankees came back into Boston for a doubleheader. Before 10,000 fans in the opener, Waite Hoyt shutout New York 4 to 0 on five scattered hits. In game two, the fans got on Yankees starter, Carl Mays, who was booed unmercifully by the crowd. Joe Bush downed the Yankees in the game by a score of 8 to 3. Mike McNally banged out four hits and drove in two runs for the Sox. Babe Ruth received a huge ovation, but did little damage against the young pitcher. He had three hits in the two games. The Sox then took the final game of the series the next day, April 20th. With the game tied a 1-1 in the ninth inning, the Yankees scored a run to take the lead. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Kid Foster received a walk. Everett Scott sacrificed him over and pinch-hitter Hack Eibel pounded a hit to center that brought Foster home with the tying run. Then the reliable Harry Hooper came up and laced a hot line drive by Del Pratt into right field. Yankee pitcher, Bob Shawkey then ticketed Mike McNally to first, filling up the bases and now it was up to Mike Menosky. Menosky met one of Shawkey's pitches squarely and knocked it out on a line over Pratt's head, walking off with the Sox' fifth straight win of the season, by a 3 to 2 score.
The Sox took the train down to Washington on April 22nd and lost 8 to 5. They jumped out to a 5-0 lead, but four of the Sox pitchers gave it back. Tim Hendryx, who had eplaced Babe Ruth in the Sox outfield, went 4-for-4, driving in three runs, in the losing effort. But the Sox came back and took the subsequent game, behind Sam Jones, 4-2. Hendryx added three more hits but Kid Foster was the run producing star. Twice he came up with runners in scoring position and delivered each time. The third game was another Sox victory, 7 to 3. Waite Hoyt picked up his second win and was never in any real trouble. Hooper banged out three hits, including two doubles. Everett Scott's two hits drove home two runs and Roxy Walters brought in two more. In the finale, Walter Johnson shut out the Sox 2-0. They then headed up to Philadelphia and handed the A's a 9-0 shutout on April 26th, courtesy of Herb Pennock. Hendryx drove in three runs with his two hits. But Everett Scott, who also homered, set a major league record by playing in his 534th consecutive game. Then, in the next game, after 14 innings, darkness set in when the score was tied at seven apiece. Hendryx, Roxy Walters and Stuffy McInnis each had four hits when the game was halted. Behind Joe Bush (3-1, 1.61 ERA), the Sox won the next meeting on April 29th, 2 to 1. In New York the next day, Waite Hoyt won his third straight game, 4-2. After 12 games in the month of April, the Red Sox were in first place with a surprising 10-2 record, and it was the Yankees who were in the second division.
But the Yankees came back hard to start the month of May and took three of the next four games, knocking the Sox into second place. Babe Ruth homered off Herb Pennock in a 6-0 Yankee shutout on May 1st. Babe then homered off Sam Jones the following day and the Yankees won again, 7-1. While his team's quick start relieved Harry Frazee of one worry, but he still had to fend off Joe Lannin. Because of the lien against Fenway Park, Frazee asked Ruppert for an extension on his loan, to May 15th. He needed to settle with a Lannin, and also was working a deal to buy the Harris Theater in New York. Ruppert agreed to the extension. Lannin knew that a court case would hurt both parties and agreed to a settlement. Harry Frazee finally signed hold-outs Oscar Vitt and Wally Schang to new contracts, reportedly near what they were asking for. The Sox rebounded when they returned to Fenway, by winning three in a four game series with the A's. On May 5th, Schang got into his first game of the season, when he pinch-hit for Roxy Walters in the ninth-inning and laced out a screeching two base hit, which drove in the tying run. The Sox then won it in the 13th inning by a score of 4 to 3, on a line single, a bloop single, a sacrifice bunt and a walk-off sacrifice fly to end it. Sam Jones allowed the A's two hits in the first seven innings and four hits overall, the next day en route to a 3-1 win. Hendryx banged out two doubles, scoring one of the runners with the third run in the fifth inning. Two days later, in May 10th, Harry Hooper started a 15 game hitting streak with four hits and three RBIs against the A's.
The Sox recaptured first place, up by 1/2 game over the White Sox and Indians. But they next lost to Cleveland when the Indians visited Fenway. Then on May 17th, Sam Jones won his third game, with a gutty 2-1 decision over the White Sox. Two games later, Harry Harper took a close 3-2 win from the White Sox. The red hot Tim Hendryx had another three hit game and drove in two runs. Ultimately the Red Sox split the four games with the White Sox, falling back into second place by 1 1/2 games. Herb Pennock shut out the Tigers, 6 to 0 on May 20th and Tim Hendryx (.375 BA) drove in two of the runners with two hits. Harry Hooper delighted the crowd by stealing home after slamming a triple past Ty Cobb in right. The next day was an 8-2 white-wash of Detroit. Stuffy McInnis, Kid Foster and Mike McNally each had three hits and McNally drove in four runners. Hooper had another triple, his third in three straight games. The Browns next lost three straight and the six consecutive wins resulted in the Sox regaining first place. In the first win, Hooper had two doubles and two RBIs in a 5-1 victory. The next day, May 25th, Hooper had two more hits, including a walk-off home run in the 11th inning. The final game was a 9 to 5 easy win for the Sox. Hooper was 2 for 2 with three walks, boosting his batting average to .317 With the legal matters cleared, the $300,000 loan from Ruppert went through near the end of the month. Six weeks after that, Frazee bought the Harris Theater. It was a savvy move, because in the 1920s Broadway was booming and theaters were in short supply. Frazee's purchase began earning him money immediately. In the meantime, the Red Sox continued to play better than expected. Tim Hendryx was leading the league with a .397 batting average and the attendance at Fenway Park was holding steady, making Frazee look like a genius. But the Yankees came to Fenway and knocked down the Sox with four straight wins. In the first game Babe hit two home runs. In the third game he slugged another one, over the clock atop the left field wall, giving him 11 for the season. Philadelphia then took three games of the four game series, bringing the Sox back to reality, and leaving them four games out of first place to start the month of June.
The Red Sox highlight for the month of June was winning three straight games from the White Sox in Chicago. Sam Jones pitched the Red Sox to a victory in a 4-1 pitcher's duel on June 8th. Everett Scott's triple with two men on in the ninth inning was the important blow. Joe Bush outpitched Lefty Williams and took a 3 to 2 decision in the second game. The third game was an 8-1 easy win for the Red Sox. Eighteen hits produced from the Red Sox bats were highlighted by Tim Hendryx, who knocked out four hits and Stuffy McInnis who had three. Wally Schang had two, including a home run.
Bush pitched another great game on June 17th in Detroit. He beat Hooks Dauss, 2 to 1, allowing just five scattered hits. The Tigers fell to the Sox two days later, 4 to 3. Stuffy McInnis and Everett Scott each had three hits and two RBIs. McInnis (.337 BA) collected three more hits and three RBIs the next day in Cleveland. At the Polo Grounds the Yankees took 3 of 4 games. Babe Ruth had two home runs in the first game on June 25th, but the Sox took it by a 6-3 score. Bush won his own game to finish the month, in the first game of a June 30th doubleheader. He pitched a good game also, beating Washington 4 to 3 in a 10 inning walk-off. Kid Foster had singled and was bunted over to second, scoring on Bush's line drive single to right. That was it. A streak of injuries and bad luck, now exposed the club's lack of depth. Hendryx went down with a bad leg and so catcher, Wally Schang moved to the outfield. The second string catcher, Roxy Walters had to move behind the plate, and he was a weak hitter. Then pitcher Waite Hoyt, went down with a pulled groin, had surgery, and missed 13 weeks. Pitcher Allen Russell collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and Harry Hooper was hospitalized after a foul ball hit him on the foot and caused an abscess. As a result, the team's defense suffered, and the Red Sox lost all the close games that they had been winning during the first two months of the season. The Sox ended up losing 17 of their 25 games in June, finishing 11 games behind the Yankees.
On July 1st, at Fenway Park, Walter Johnson, in his 14th year, pitched the first no-hitter of his career. He beat the Red Sox 1-0 and was kept from a perfect game when secondbaseman, Bucky Harris bobbled a grounder hit by Harry Hooper in the seventh inning. Johnson struck out ten Red Sox hitters. Overshadowed was the great game thrown by Sox pitcher, Harry Harper, who allowed seven hits and struck out seven. The next day, July 2nd, with the score 9 to 2 against them, when they went to bat in the sixth inning, the Red Sox fought back and in the 10th inning Harry Hooper drove in the run which gave them a 10-9 victory. Down by seven runs, the Sox countered with four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. They again got busy and chopped the lead away to nothing over the next three innings. With the score 9 to 8, as the Red Sox came up on the bottom of the ninth-inning, Wally Schang was patient and drew a base on balls. He was sacrificed over to second by Stuffy McInnis and scored on a base hit by Foster to tie up the game. After one was out in the 10th inning, Oscar Vitt doubled to center and Hooper brought him across with a walk-off base hit. The Philadelphia A's lost both games of a doubleheader to the Sox at Shibe Park on July 5th. In the first game, behind McInnis' four hits, the Sox beat them 6 to 1. The A's got thrashed, 10-3 in the second game. Mike Menosky rapped out four hits, including a triple, and Joe Bush helped himself by getting three of his own. Everett Scott collected four hits, that scored three runners the next game. Menosky's also had three RBIs in an 11-0 shutout of the Athletics. Sam Jones was on the mound and gave up just five hits in the game. Bush was on the winning side of a 2 to 1 victory over the Browns at Fenway on July 9th. Down 1-0 and with Menosky on third and Foster on second, Scott lined a single that brought them both home in the seventh inning with the tying and winning runs. On July 14th, against the Tigers, the Red Sox won both games of the doubleheader. The first game was won 6 to 5 and in the second 4 to 0. In the ninth inning of the opening game, the Sox apparently had the game sewed up, 3 to 1, but before the Tigers were retired in the ninth, the Sox lost the lead and were down 5-3. But in the bottom of the ninth, Stuffy McInnis, Kid Foster and Everett Scott, the first three men up, hit safely. One run came in when Tim Hendryx walked and the tying and winning runs came in when shortstop, Donie Bush threw wild to first base, in trying to complete a doubleplay. The final score was a thrilling 6 to 5 comeback by the Sox. Herb Pennock then followed in the second game and was brilliant. The Tigers could do nothing against the Red Sox southpaw, making only four hits and failing to score at all. Oscar Stanage, who cracked out a double, was the only one to see second base. Pennock won again in the second game of a July 19th doubleheader against the Indians at Fenway. Cleveland's Jim Bagby had things pretty much his own way until the ninth-inning, when the Sox put over the tying run. Then with two outs in the 10th, the Sox put over the winning run. Wally Schang was hit by a pitch and stole second. Kid Foster then brought him in when he hit the ball through the box into centerfield for the walkoff 5 to 4 victory.
Sam Jones pitched another nice game against the White Sox at Fenway on July 21st, beating them 2 to 1. A double by Roxy Walters, a triple by Harry Hooper and a sac fly from Oscar Vitt gave the Sox the two runs that they needed to win, when they were down 1-0 in the fifth inning. Jones allowed six hits and pitched well enough to get himself out of three jams. Having won only five of the seventeen game home stand, and 18 games behind, the Sox squared off against the Yankees for two games at the Polo Grounds. On July 25th, Babe Ruth hit his 35th homer off Waite Hoyt, as part of an 8 to 2 victory. The Sox came back behind Sam Jones and beat the Yankees, 9 to 0 in the second game. Jones allowed them only three hits. July was concluded by losing four straight in Cleveland. Jones pitched another fine game on July 31st, but found himself on the losing side of a 2 to 1 score to Guy Morton. The Sox were 22 1/2 games behind.
Manager Ed Barrow and Harry Frazee tried to fill the holes but weren't able to make any trades. They were not dealing from strength, and still had an enemy in Ban Johnson. Although Johnson had been stripped of much of his power, he was still the president of the American League and did wield considerable influence over the teams that were loyal to him. Ruppert, Comiskey and Frazee were on able to make significant trades with each other and all the other owners knew that they would feel the wrath of Johnson, if they dealt with these three teams.
On August 2nd, the Sox were able to pick up pitcher Elmer Myers on waivers from Cleveland. He turned out to be the league's best pitcher for the rest of the season, winning nine of the ten games he started. When Boston's injured players returned to the lineup in August, the club started winning again, going 19-12 by the end of the month, but it wasn't enough. Harry Hooper's double and two singles supported Herb Pennock, who won his 12th game against the Tigers in Detroit, by a 3-1 score on August 3rd. Stuffy McInnis was the hitting star in Chicago, as his double and triple were instrumental in beating the White Sox, 4 to 2 on August 7th. Wally Schang also slugged one of the longest home runs over the right field fence of Comiskey Park that had put the Sox in the lead, breaking a 2-2 tie. An exciting game took place in St. Louis on August 9th. With two outs in the ninth inning and two runs behind, 4-2, Benn Karr hit a innocent single. Schang, who had homered in the third inning, scored Karr with a double. Kid Foster was up next as a pinch hitter a lined a double down the left field line that scored Schang with the tying run and sending the game into extra innings. Schang started the winning rally in the 11th inning with a single to right and went to second on Mike McNally's grounder. Oscar Vitt tried to bunt Schang over, but forced him into a run-down between second and third. Vitt was able to move down to second and Elmer Myer's scored him with, what would be, the winning run, 5 to 4. Myers threw a shutout on August 13th in Philadelphia. He allowed five hits and struck out nine, winning 7 to 0. Mike Menosky collected four singles the next day, as the Sox rallied with a five-run seventh inning and beat the A's, 6-3. The Sox came home and beat the Tigers 6 to 4, the next game and won their fourth straight, 4 to 3, the day after. On August 18th, the Sox beat Detroit, behind Myers, with a walk-off 6 to 5 score, in 11 innings. The Sox jumped out to a 5-0 lead but the Tigers fought back to tie the game in the eighth inning. With one out, in the 11th, Mike McNally was walked and stole second when Foster struck out. Myers then hit a simple ground ball to firstbaseman Harry Heilman, but a bad hop saw the ball bounce over his shoulder. As Heilman scrambled to get the ball, McNally crossed the plate with the winning run.
The Red Sox next won five of the six games played with the Indians at Fenway. Two shutouts were pitched in an August 21st doubleheader. Waite Hoyt allowed just three hits as his teammates knocked out 12 runs, with 13 hits in the first game. Tim Hendryx (.350 BA) had four RBIs and Wally Schang (.310 BA) drove in three more. Not to be out-done, Herb Pennock won the second game, 4-0, allowing only three hits also. After losing the first game of another doubleheader on August 23rd, the Sox rallied to win the second game in 13 innings, by a 4 to 3 score. The Indians jumped out to a two run lead in the second game, but the Sox rallied, tying things up 2-2 in the seventh inning. After falling behind by a run in the 10th, the Sox came back and tied it up again. The Sox were unsuccessful when Schang led off the 11th with a triple but was thrown out at the plate. Then two innings later Hendryx singled and eventually was brought home with the winning run on Everett Scott's base hit. Behind Myers against the Browns on August 25th, the Sox pounded them, 11-1. Hooper had three hits and Hendryx tripled and drove in three runs in three times up. Sam Jones pitched a 4-0 shutout at Fenway against the White Sox and won his 11th game of the season on August 30th. In his eleven wins this year, five came against Chicago. Joe Bush had three hits himself, when he beat Chicago the next day, 7 to 3.
September started with Herb Pennock winning his 15th game, beating the White Sox, 6 to 2. The Yankees came to Fenway next and were beaten when Myers won his fifth straight game and allowed five hits on September 2nd. The next two games were part of a September 4th doubleheader. It was "Babe Ruth Day" and the Babe celebrated by slamming his 45th and 46th homers. In spite of three hits by both Hendryx (.354 BA) and McInnis, the Sox were beaten in the opener. In addition to his 45th homer, Babe had three hits in a game the Yankees won, 5-3. The second game of the day went to the Sox. They scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and walked off with a 6-5 victory. It was a game where apparently hopeless defeat was turned into glorious victory in the twinkling of an eye. A base hit to center by Hooper, with two outs in the ninth-inning and Gene Bailey on second and Joe Bush on first, scored Bailey with the tying run. Ping Bodie rifled his throw to the catcher, Muddy Ruel, as Bailey slid in safe. Ruel blocked the plate, but in the confusion, he allowed the ball to roll away from him, and it made its way all the way over to the grandstand wall. Bush never faltered at third, and kept coming around and was over the plate with the winning run, before Ruel could retrieve the ball, giving the Red Sox a thrilling walk-off, 6 to 5 win. When the Babe knocked out his 46th home run of the year in the second game, he broke the record for home runs in a single season. Last year he had 29 homers and set a new major league record. This however was not the overall record, as Perry Werden, who played with Minneapolis, then in the Western League, had 45 round trippers in 1895. Myers chalked up seventh straight win by beating Washington, 5 to 3, on September 9th. Hooper climaxed a game in St. Louis on September 12th, with a home run giving the Sox a 9-7 decision against the Browns. The next day, his sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the 14th inning, gave the Sox and Myers, a 5 to 4 win. A triple by Schang in the eighth inning helped the Sox tie the game. On September 18th, Myers won his 10th game in Detroit, 7 to 4, and on September 23rd, Myers (11-5) won his 9th straight beating the A's, 9 to 2. Joe Bush won his 15th game at Fenway Park, beating the A's on September 25th. Hendryx added three hits, including two doubles. Harry Harper struck out 13 batters and allowed six hits, shutting out the Nats on September 27th and Pennock won his 16th game the next day. Harry Hooper (.312 BA) had four hits in the last game of the season, a losing effort to Washington, on September 28th. The Red Sox finished the year in fifth place with a record of 72-81, only a few percentage points worse than the year before. The Yankees finished in third, three games behind the American League Champion, Cleveland Indians. And so, even by trading Babe, Harry Frazee had briefly become somewhat vindicated. The attendance at Fenway Park held steady, and Frazee continued to prosper in baseball and in his other ventures. But "The Curse of the Bambino" had begun and in years to come, things would only get worse. Babe Ruth had an incredible year. He had 54 home runs, batted .376, driving in 137 and scoring 158 runs.
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