When Babe Ruth went to spring training with the Boston Braves in 1935, that it was wrong for the Yankees and the American League let him go to the National League was a subject of disagreement among two of baseball’s most famous personalities.
Babe Ruth
Harry Grayson, the longtime sports editor for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, spoke to both in Florida:
“Rogers Hornsby says Babe Ruth was driven out of the American League by self-protecting business managers.
‘”I tried to save Ruth for the league at the minor league meeting in Louisville,’ explains the outspoken Hornsby.”
Hornsby, then manager of the Saint Louis Browns, said he and the Carle McEvoy, the team’s vice president asked American League President Will Harridge to help arrange for Ruth to come to St. Louis as Hornsby’s “assistant.”
Hornsby felt after a year working under him, Ruth would be ready to manage a team in 1936.
“’We could not pay his salary and asked that the league look after part of it, but nothing came of the proposition.”
Hornsby said after his effort failed, he couldn’t “understand why he didn’t and the Yankee job, and why the Red Sox, Indians, and White Sox passed him up.”
Rogers Hornsby
Hornsby was just getting started:
“Business managers taking care of their own interests sent Ruth the National League, after a score of phenomenal and faithful years of service in the American.”
“The “business managers” he said, would have to take a back seat to Ruth as manager.
“’I suspect that is why Eddie Collins didn’t grab Ruth for the Red Sox, where he would have been the idol he will be with the Braves. Only a man of Tom Yawkey’s millions could have kept pace with Collins’ expenditures, which have failed to put the Red Sox anywhere in particular.’
“’I ask you: Which would have been a better deal—Ruth free gratis, and for nothing, or Joe Cronin for $250,000 [sic, $225,000]”
Hornsby would have probably altered his opinion after Cronin spent the next decade in Boston.
Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack took “an altogether different view,” of the Ruth situation:
Connie Mack
“’Because Ruth was a great instinctive ballplayer it does not necessarily follow that he would be a good manager,’ elucidates Mack.
‘”Ruth was not forced out of the American League. He could have continued with the Yankees or gone to most any other club and played as often as he cared to.’
“’Ruth wasn’t satisfied with that, however. During the World Series he announced he would not sign another players’ contract. He wanted Joe McCarthy’s position as manager of the Yankees. If he came to Philadelphia, for example, he wanted my job. Well, it just happens that I need my job, and I have an idea McCarthy needs his.’”
Yawkey made no apologies for the money he spent to obtain Cronin, but said:
“I wish Ruth all the luck in the world. I hope the Babe has a tremendous season. He has the people of Boston talking baseball, which will react to the advantage of the Red Sox as well as the Braves. Boston needed someone like Ruth to offset the inroads made by (thoroughbred) racing in New England last year.”
Ruth lasted just until the end of May, hitting just .181 and embroiled in an ongoing disagreement with team owner Emil Fuchs over Ruth’s alleged roles as a club vice president and “assistant manager” to Bill McKechnie.
Ruth was presented with a signed ball by his Braves teammates and presented a parting shot at Fuchs that Paul Gallico of The New York Daily News called, “Ruthian and splendid.”
Ruth said:
“Judge Fuchs is a double-crosser. His word is no good. He doesn’t keep his promises. I don’t want another damn thing from him—the dirty double-crosser.”
Baseball History Daily 