The Yankees Offered to Trade Lou Gehrig to the Red Sox

[steve B]

Back then there was essentially no rivalry as we know it now. If I remember it correctly, at one time the Yankees held some portion of the loan to build Fenway Park.

[SAllen2556]

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading something about how Ruth was likely to be sold to the Yankees because the owners wanted the New York franchise to be more successful. Up through 1920 they were not very successful at all. Everyone knew the Babe would help New York, which would in turn help every franchise overall. Maybe trading Gehrig was, indeed, payback.

[Jim65]

This reminds me of the the story told by Jody McDonald (son of former Mets GM Joe McDonald) The Yankees tried to get Joe Torre from the Mets and offered a young minor league Pitcher named Ron Guidry but backed out at the last minute.

[Volod]

The traditional tale has it that Ruth was handed to the Yankees by the Sox because Boston owner Harry Frazee was deeply in debt in 1919 and decided to break up his team to fix his finances. Who knows how accurate that account actually is, but Boston's manager that year, Ed Barrow, did resign and subsequently join the Yankees the next year as GM. He then worked several more deals with Frazee, bringing additional star players to New York. As sharp a judge of talent as Barrow was, I find it hard to believe that he would have considered trading Gehrig to Boston just to help out his old boss, Frazee.

[ullmandds]

it seems, like many minor leaguers today, there were numerous inquiries about gehrig!

This is a copy(telex) of a telegram my neighbor...sportswriter harold rosenthal, gave to me when I was a kid. Wonder where the original is???