Babe Ruth: Legends in Sports Read Online Free PDF Page A

traveled. According to some accounts the ball
     traveled an amazing 600 feet!
    When the Red Sox opened the season a few weeks later, Ruth was still in the outfield. In less than a week, he found himself
     in big trouble.
    While the Red Sox played in Washington, Ruth stayed out all night. A hotel worker woke Barrow when Ruth returned at six in
     the morning. The manager knocked on Ruth’s door. Ruth, still dressed and smoking a pipe, quickly jumped under the covers,pulled them up to his neck, and told the manager to come in.
    Barrow entered, walked over to the bed, and pulled the covers down, revealing Ruth still in his street clothes. He gave Ruth
     a disgusted look and snapped, “I’ll see you at the ballpark!” Later, he suspended Ruth for a day and gave him a piece of advice.
     “Turn your life around,” Barrow told him.
    For a while, Ruth heeded the advice, at least off the field. On the field, however, he struggled. Once the season started
     his big bat was silent and the move to the outfield seemed like a big mistake. By the first of June he was one of the worst
     hitters in the league. The Red Sox weren’t scoring runs with Ruth in the lineup and they missed him on the pitching mound.
     The World Series champs were already out of the pennant race, their season effectively over.
    Barrow and Frazee begged Ruth to return to the mound. He reluctantly agreed, but only if he was still allowed to play the
     outfield between starts. Almost immediately his bat perked up and he started hitting home runs at a record rate. It was too
     late to help the Sox that season, but fans began to turn out in droves to see him hit, particularly in New York,where for some reason he always hit the ball better than anywhere else.
    Ruth loved the attention and stayed hot for the rest of the season, breaking Cravath’s record with twenty-nine home runs.
     He helped out on the mound occasionally, too, but the turnaround came too late for the Red Sox. They finished in sixth place.
    Then Ruth made another bad mistake. Just a few days before the end of the season, he left without permission to play an exhibition
     game for extra money. That angered his teammates, manager Barrow, and Harry Frazee.
    Over the past few seasons Frazee had been fighting with Ban Johnson, the President of the American League. Johnson didn’t
     want Frazee to own the Red Sox anymore and Frazee didn’t think Johnson should be league president. The other teams took sides,
     with the Red Sox, Yankees, and White Sox battling Johnson in the courts over a variety of issues.
    In the midst of all this trouble, Frazee didn’t need more aggravation from his players. Over the past few seasons Ruth had
     put himself above the team, running around all hours of the night and not takingcare of himself. He was a great player, but he was also becoming a huge headache. When Ruth demanded yet another raise and
     a new contract, Frazee decided he’d had enough. He knew Ruth was a popular and talented player that many clubs would be interested
     in acquiring. He decided to sell Ruth while the price was high and rebuild.
    The New York Yankees needed a star attraction. Since joining the American League in 1903, they had never won a pennant. But
     in 1919, new owners Jacob Ruppert and Cap Huston had money to spend. They decided to build the team around Babe Ruth, as a
     hitter, not a pitcher.
    Harry Frazee held out until Ruppert and Huston offered him $100,000 for Ruth. Just before the New Year, Frazee agreed to sell
     Ruth to the Yankees.
    Some fans and sportswriters in Boston were angry about the sale, believing that Frazee had thrown away their best player.
     Others agreed with Frazee who said “the Yankees are taking quite a risk” with Ruth. In New York, some thought Ruth would become
     a star and lead the Yankees to a pennant. Others worried that Ruth was too out of control and thathe might never again hit as well as he had in 1919. The sale was a gamble on both sides.
    Ruth