For sale: A $50,000 installment payment for Babe Ruth
(Historic Auctions)
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The canceled $50,000 check to the Boston American League Baseball Club has grayed slightly since it was written in 1922 and does not appear to be worth more than the perforated paper it was printed on. There is no mention of Red Sox or Yankees, curses or world championships, or that infamous chubby slugger.
But with his looping signature in blue ink on the back, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee endorsed what became an installment payment on 86 years of pain and frustration. It is a check from the Yankees from the $450,000 deal that sent George Herman "Babe" Ruth to the Bronx.
The 5-1/2 inch tall and 12-inch wide check is the signature item in a 1,200-lot online sale this month hosted by Historic Auctions in St. Petersburg, Fla. Offered by an anonymous seller, the starting price is $25,000, a figure the company expects to surge to $100,000 when bidding ends on May 29, said Historic Auctions president James Brown.
The 1919 deal Frazee orchestrated for Ruth sent $100,000 in cash and a $350,000 loan to the Red Sox over several years. The check -- dated Feb. 4, 1922 -- was the second payment. Another $100,000 Yankees check from Dec. 30, 1921, will hit the auction block in December.
Ruth’s sale marked the start of an 86-year drought for the Red Sox as the Yankees roared to 26 World Series championships. The auctioneers speculated that the checks could be bought by a New Yorker looking for irreplaceable keepsake, or a Red Sox fan bent on destroying any record of the blood money that cursed all those seasons.
“It’s an important part of baseball history with the curse and all,” Brown said wistfully. “I’d hate for something to happen to it.”
