Harry Frazee and Ban Johnson Book

Michael T. Lynch, Jr.

ISBN 978-0-7864-3330-8
photos, notes, bibliography, index
softcover 2008
$29.95

Available March 30, 2008 from McFarland Publishing.

Most baseball fans know Red Sox owner Harry Frazee as “the man who sold Babe Ruth,” initiating a championship drought that plagued the Red Sox from 1919 through 2003. There is, however, much more to Frazee’s story.

Earning the enmity of American League president Ban Johnson with his 1916 purchase of the Red Sox, Frazee found himself the object of an intense smear campaign designed to force him out of baseball. Over the next seven years, Frazee, Johnson and their respective allies waged war over several issues, including Frazee’s controversial trade of Carl Mays, the Black Sox, the National Commission, and the establishment of a trade deadline. The feud eventually led to Frazee’s sale of the Red Sox in 1923 and cost Johnson his ironclad hold on American League.

Chapter One: A Czar is Born

By the time the American League was formed in 1901, league president Byron Bancroft “Ban” Johnson had already established himself as an autocratic leader who ruled his kingdom with an iron fist. While this would eventually contribute to his downfall, it served him well early on. Johnson had served as president of the Western League, the precursor of the American League, from 1893-1899 and led the circuit to great success. He was a visionary whose goals were to eliminate the players’ rowdy behavior that marred the game and give umpires his full support, something they’d never had. Johnson wrote that “rowdyism ran amuck on the professional baseball diamond of those days” and that it was his determination to “pattern baseball in this new league along the lines of scholastic contests, to make ability and brains and clean, honorable play, not the swinging of clenched fists, coarse oaths, riots or assaults upon the umpires decide the issue.”

American League president Ban Johnson

If anyone could pattern baseball along the lines of scholastic contests, Johnson certainly had the pedigree. He was born in Norwalk, Ohio on January 6, 1863 to Alexander Byron and Eunice Clymenestra Johnson. Alexander, or A.B. as he was known, was a graduate of Oberlin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree, who was talented enough to earn teaching assignments while still in college. Eunice attended Oberlin for two years and studied literature. Johnson’s uncle Rossiter was a renowned writer and editor who worked for several newspapers, edited volumes of books, and wrote several of his own. Johnson’s paternal grandfather was also well-educated, having graduated from Williams College, before serving as a public school teacher for thirty years.

His family wasn’t just well educated, however, they were also devout Presbyterians. The family moved to Avondale, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, and A.B. helped found the Avondale Church in 1867 and served as its first Sunday school superintendent. Johnson’s parents were not ‘religious fanatics,’ but according to Johnson’s biographer Eugene C. Murdock they stressed the “lower morality” and emphasized the “practical application of the Commandments.” Regardless of his religious proclivities, Ban was expected to attend his parents’ alma mater, which he did beginning in 1880. It was at Oberlin that Johnson’s talent as a baseball player became apparent. Standing at a sturdy five feet, eleven inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, he made the varsity team as a catcher and was offered a professional contract from a major league club. But his father wouldn’t allow him to sign, so his career as a professional baseball player ended before it began.

Chapter Two: The American League

After much speculation about war; wrangling between the two leagues over legal matters; and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the American League kicked off its inaugural season on April 24, 1901 and saw Charles Comiskey’s White Sox defeat the Cleveland Blues 8-2. Charles Somers’ money and Ban Johnson’s diligence had their league on solid footing right from the start. The threats made by the American Association, which was attempting to revive itself, and the National League, which sought to align itself with the former in an effort to thwart Johnson, had no teeth. The reformation of the American Association proved to be nothing but a smoke screen. On January 5, 1901 the New York Times reported that “…the two side organizations of the National and American baseball leagues are off, and it will be war to the knife between the National League and ‘Ban’ Johnson by a third organization, nearly equal in strength to the National League.”

But Johnson wasn’t intimidated in the least. He called reports of the American Association’s revival “a big joke,” and to prove he wasn’t bluffing about his intention of putting teams in Boston and Philadelphia, he sent Connie Mack to his home state of Massachusetts to secure a location for a new ballpark in its capital city. Thanks to a $100,000 “donation” from Somers, Mack was able to lease the Huntington Avenue Grounds for five years. The site for the park, known to Bostonians as “the Chutes,” was leased by the Boston Elevated Railroad company and served as a water park for Boston residents during the summer. To most if not all observers, Mack and Johnson struck a thunderous blow to the National League. The Huntington Avenue site had 100,000 more square feet than the South End Grounds where the city’s National League squad played and was thought to be superior in every way. Their biggest concern was filling in the pond at the base of the chutes.

Philadelphia’s Connie Mack and Washington’s Clark Griffith shake hands on Opening Day 1919

D.L. Prendergast, Boston Elevated’s real estate agent, spoke highly of Johnson and Mack. “There is no doubt in my mind that the parties mean business,” he said. “It strikes me the American League people have secured an ideal location for their business.”

Then Johnson sent Mack to Philadelphia to do the same. The Athletics manager secured a ten-year lease on the grounds at twenty-ninth street and Columbia Avenue.⁶ Again it was Somers who put up the capital needed to obtain the site and fund the new stadium. It was originally thought that Benjamin Shibe would supply the financial backing, but he backed down in the face of the National League’s threats.

Chapter Three: “Handsome Harry” Frazee

Frazee was born in Peoria, Illinois to William Byron and Margaret A. Frazee on June 29, 1880. He played third base for his high school team and, according to the Globe, managed Peoria of the Western League when he was only sixteen. It was at that age that he ventured out on his own against the wishes of his parents, taking a job at the Peoria Theater, doing menial chores. At 17, he was an advance man for a touring production and two years later he enjoyed his first theatrical success, making $14,000 on a show called Mahoney’s Wedding. Over the next several years he produced a string of hits, including Madame Sherry in 1910, a successful musical that netted him $250,000. Gerald Bordman, author of American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, called Madame Sherry “one of the five domestic masterpieces of the day” and noted that the show was the “first of the season’s three musical triumphs for the American musical theater” and that it broke “house records in many of the cities it visited.”

Theatrical producer Harry Frazee owned the Red Sox from 1916 to 1923

He built the Cort Theater in Chicago in 1907 and by 1912 had hits with The Kissing Girl and Ready Money. Frazee had a knack for turning previous failures into successes. Eugene Walter had written a play that was originally called Fads and Frills, and then was renamed Homeward Bound, but had failed at the box office both times. Frazee met Walter on a train ride from Chicago to New York. “He was the bluest and most melancholy playwright you ever saw,” recalled Frazee. By the time the train reached its destination, Walter had convinced Frazee that the rewritten play, now called Fine Feathers, was the best play he’d ever written. Frazee offered the playwright a contract and a royalty check with the stipulation that Walter would allow Frazee to do things his way, which included hiring a “star cast.” When the revamped show opened in New York in 1913 it garnered rave reviews. “On the whole it is exceedingly interesting, in many respects exceptionally well written, and in some regards extraordinarily vigorous,” opined the New York Times. “And in the main it is acted in a manner to bring out all that is best in it.”

Frazee opened the Longacre Theater on Broadway in New York and Boston’s Arlington Theater in 1913 and enjoyed another hit with Adele. “Critics and public alike embraced Adele,” Bordman wrote. “Although the piece is now neglected and practically forgotten…it proved to be one of the most successful of the season’s many musicals, running 196 performances.” He also scored with A Pair of Sixes in 1914, which ran for a year in New York and was seen by two million theatergoers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago over a two-year span, A Full House in 1915, and Nothing But the Truth in 1916. Frazee was an innovator, who adopted the custom of “flying matinees,” a popular practice in London that had yet to catch on in the United States. Frazee’s productions would play in cities close enough to New York that they could be performed during the day in places such as New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, Stamford, and Yonkers, and then again at night at the Astor Theater in New York.

But it was also written of him that he was a “producer of the old school—buy cheap, sell dear, and screw the world.” Frazee was a heavy drinker and philanderer. Irving Caeser, a songwriter who helped pen such hits as Tea For Two for Frazee’s musicals, once said of the producer, “Harry Frazee never drew a sober breath in his life, but he was a hell of a producer. He made more sense drunk than most men do sober.”

Chapter Four: The Carl Mays Affair

Carl Mays broke in with the Red Sox in 1915 and, with Babe Ruth splitting time between the mound and the field, he became the anchor of the pitching staff in 1918. From 1915 to 1918 Mays was second on the Red Sox only to Ruth in wins and had posted an excellent 2.17 ERA in almost 1,000 innings. Only Walter Johnson, Ruth, and Red Faber had a better ERA over those four years.

After swearing he’d never pitch for the Red Sox again due to poor run support and shoddy defense, Carl Myas was traded to the Yankees amid protests from Ban Johnson

He also had a reputation for “dusting off” hitters and had finished among the top five in hit batsmen over the previous three seasons, leading the league with 14 in 1917. Mays had developed an underhand delivery after watching 42-year-old Joe McGinnity pitch for Tacoma in a game against Mays’ Portland team. About his new delivery, Baseball Magazine wrote, “Carl slings the pill from his toes, has a weird looking wind-up and in action looks like a cross between an octopus and a bowler.” Despite being a low-ball pitcher, American League players often wondered how his inside pitches generally sailed up around the batter’s head. Mays explained years later that “They [batters] were always trying to intimidate me. There wasn’t a single batter who came up to the plate who didn’t have but one purpose in mind—to knock me out of the box. So when the occasion called for it, I sat them down.” His head-hunting led to a feud with Ty Cobb, who retaliated to a series of brush back pitches in a 1915 contest by spiking Mays while he was covering first base on a bunt play and, on a separate occasion, throwing his bat at him.

“While Mays was vilified by his opponents,” Mike Sowell wrote of the side-winder, “he was despised by many of the players on his own ballclub. On the field, he was belligerent and argumentative, raging at anyone who stood in the way of his winning. He shouted at fielders who made errors behind him and belittled others for their shortcomings.” F.C. Lane charged, “He has aroused more ill will, more positive resentment than any other ball player on record.” Mays and Ruth clashed often and almost came to blows on several occasions, although one or the other would eventually back down.

In 1918 Mays paced Boston in wins, innings pitched, games started, and games completed, then won his only two starts of the World Series, allowing only two earned runs in 18 innings. He felt he deserved a raise above what he’d made during that championship season. His World Series share was a pittance compared to what previous shares had been and Mays was married only a week after the Series had ended. He needed the money. But he remembered Frazee’s response to his contract demands prior to the 1917 campaign. Mays sent his contract back to Frazee unsigned, but promised to report to spring training a day or two early regardless. Frazee called Mays’ demand for a $1,400 raise “preposterous,” and warned him that if he went to Hot Springs, Arkansas without signing his contract he would be forced to pay his own way and wouldn’t be able to practice with the team. Eventually the disgruntled hurler signed a contract for an undisclosed amount. Now he was holding out again.

Chapter Five: Divided We Stand: The “Insurrectos” vs. the “Loyal Five”

Prior to the Mays case the American League landscape was painted in shades of gray, with only individual squabbles making headlines, especially between Frazee and Johnson. While Johnson had a hand in most of the trades that were made, owners were at least willing to deal with one another amicably, trying to strengthen their respective clubs, either by adding talent to their team or by replenishing their coffers with money. There were questionable deals, to be sure. Some, like the Speaker trade, were brokered in secret, and ended up being one-sided in terms of talent being exchanged, although the owner who was short-changed in that department almost always lined his pockets with cash. Others, like the Jackson deal, were brokered between long-time friends and typically the player’s availability was kept under wraps until the deal had already been made. Even in cases where an owner may come out at a decided disadvantage, the owners were mostly willing to comply for the good of the league. Johnson’s tactics and intentions were less than noble on some occasions, but, for the most part, everyone was willing to abide the quid pro quo tradition of deal-making.

Once Mays had been sent from Boston to New York, however, everyone was forced to choose a side and battle lines were more clearly defined.

Boston’s Harry Frazee, Chicago’s Charles Comiskey, and New York’s Jacob Ruppert and Cap Huston banded together and formed what the press dubbed the “Insurrectos.” Detroit’s Frank Navin, Washington’s Clark Griffith, Cleveland’s Jim Dunn, St. Louis’ Phil Ball, and Connie Mack (and the Shibes) in Philadelphia sided with Johnson and were dubbed the “Loyal Five.” Where once the American League owners had banded together to fight the rival National League, they had now split into two groups and were fighting each other.

Charles Comiskey (front row left), Frank Navin (second from left), and Ban Johnson (fourth from left) pose for a photo in happier times

In October, before the court could decide the Mays case, Navin fired a salvo at the Insurrectos in the form of a protest over the division of World Series shares. Based on the rules at the time, only the top three teams from each league were to share in the players’ pool, with the third-place team earning ten percent, which came to just over $13,000. Navin argued that the Yankees, who finished in third place only a half game ahead of the Tigers, should not be awarded third-place money because Mays’ victories were illegal based on the fact that he was under suspension while pitching for New York. He demanded that Mays’ victories be expunged and that Detroit be awarded third place instead. The National Commission withheld payment until it could review the case.

Colonel Ruppert was quick to respond and made no bones about his opinion of Navin and Johnson. “This protest from Mr. Navin verifies my opinion of the gentleman’s sporting caliber, and it is my belief, based upon his well-known timorousness, that without the suggestion of support from the self-constituted powers in baseball he would not have the temerity to champion his untenable position so boldly.”

Finally, on October 25, Justice Wagner announced his decision on the Mays case. He granted an injunction against Johnson from interfering with Mays pitching for the Yankees. “Inasmuch as the leading clubs of the league and their players are entitled at the end of the season to certain rights and privileges…this interference with an individual player would confuse and possibly destroy the rights of the respective clubs and their players, for the validity of the games in which Mays participated might be questioned.” Wagner decreed. “Considering the far-reaching effects of the suspension, the loss to the plaintiff [the Yankees] and to the Boston club, the confusion of the rights of the clubs and players, and the serious damage that could accrue to the property rights, the President’s act was, to say the least, not fortified with that perfect appreciation of the facts which evinces a desire to do equity to all parties concerned.” The Yankees had scored a major victory, and Johnson suffered an ignominious defeat.

Chapter Six: The Most Misunderstood Deal of the Century

When the world awoke on January 6, 1920 baseball fans were greeted with the news that Babe Ruth had been sold to the Yankees for $100,000. Twelve days earlier, on December 26, Harry Frazee and the Yankee Colonels had already agreed in principal on a deal that would deliver the slugger to New York in exchange for $25,000 in cash and three $25,000 notes to be paid annually at six percent interest. The first installment was payable on November 1, 1920, the second on November 1, 1921, and the third on November 1, 1922. A separate deal, one that wouldn’t be made public for another ten months, was also agreed upon between Ruppert and Frazee. Frazee secured a $300,000 loan from Ruppert in exchange for the mortgage on Fenway Park. “I hereby offer to loan or cause to be loaned to you $300,000…to be secured by a first mortgage on land now used as a baseball playing field by the Boston American League Baseball Club,” Ruppert wrote to Frazee.

But the transaction was contingent on the Yankees getting Ruth to agree to a new contract. He’d been telling anyone and everyone that he would not tolerate a trade and that he’d only play for the Red Sox or he’d retire from baseball altogether. It was a stance The Sporting News called “pathetic.” Since Ruth was still in California, he had no idea he’d been sent to the Yankees. Few did. The Sporting News reported on New Year’s Day that Ruth’s sale or transfer was doubtful and that Frazee was “out for playing strength rather than money. He [Frazee] says he would demand five stars in exchange for Ruth, but…it looks as if Ruth would remain in Boston because there probably is no club which would give what he considers the player’s worth.” The Washington Post reported on January 3 that Ruth was leading a “host of holdouts” and that Frazee still wouldn’t give in to the slugger’s outrageous demands.

The Colonels prepared themselves for a salary negotiation, which was all but inevitable given Ruth’s track record, and they added clauses to their agreement with Frazee that would protect them in case Ruth made good on his threats. If Ruth didn’t report to the Yankees by July 1, Frazee was to return the cash and the three notes. If Ruth demanded a salary increase, the Yankees agreed to pay him up to $15,000, but the Red Sox would have to cover the rest up to $2,500 over the next two years. The final clause said if the slugger demanded a bonus, the Yankees would pay the first $10,000, but Boston would have to pay anything above and beyond that up to $15,000.

Many believed that shipping the recalcitrant Ruth out of Boston was Harry Frazee’s only recourse

Miller Huggins took a train to Los Angeles and found Ruth playing golf at Griffith Park. When the Yankee manager told Ruth he’d been traded, the slugger immediately launched into his salary demands. If Ruth promised to behave himself, Huggins told him, the Colonels would be willing to offer him a new deal. The men met the next day and hammered out an agreement that would have Ruth honor his current contract—$10,000 a year over the next two years—but he was awarded a bonus of $1,000 and then given a second bonus of $20,000 that would be dispersed in $2,500 increments at regular intervals over the next two seasons. The $41,000 sum was more than twice what he would have earned in Boston. If nothing else the Sultan of Swat was consistent. Clearly his love for money was stronger than his love for the Red Sox.

Chapter Seven: The Black Sox Scandal

On September 7, 1920 the Cook County grand jury announced it was investigating not only the Cubs-Phillies game of a week prior but also baseball gambling in general. One of baseball’s greatest fears was about to be realized; gamblers had, in fact, manipulated the outcome of not only a single game or a series of contests, but the biggest series of contests of the 1919 season—the World Series. Two weeks after the announcement, subpoenas were issued to several baseball officials and sportswriters, as well as New York Giants pitcher Rube Benton, who, according to Assistant District Attorney Hartley Replogle, had information pertinent to the case. Ban Johnson, Charles Comiskey, White Sox manager Kid Gleason, National League president John Heydler, and Cubs owner Bill Veeck were among those called to testify.

On September 23 it was reported the 1919 World Series was not “on the square,” according to Replogle, and that Johnson had presented evidence that proved that some players had thrown games during the 1919 season, but that he wasn’t aware of any fixed games during the 1920 campaign. Johnson also used the opportunity to throw Comiskey under the bus by testifying that he knew that the White Sox owner was aware of the fix prior to the start of the World Series and that some of the White Sox players had asked Johnson to get their bonus money from Comiskey, who was withholding it pending an investigation. Johnson also averred that the White Sox were conceding the current pennant race to the Indians out of fear that gamblers, who were betting on a Cleveland pennant, would use the information they had about the 1919 Series to blackmail the White Sox players if they refused to “throw” the pennant to the Indians. “I heard several weeks ago a vague statement that the White Sox would not dare win the pennant this season…because the gambling syndicate would tell what they knew of the conduct of certain players in the…World’s championship games in 1919,” Johnson testified.

Charles Comiskey was once Ban Johnson’s best friend, but by the 1919 World Series, they were bitter enemies

Comiskey was incensed that Johnson would make such accusations at a time when his White Sox were locked in heated battle with Cleveland for the top spot in the American League. When the report came out Chicago was only a half game back of Cleveland with only 10 days left in the regular season. The White Sox owner also accused Johnson of trying to get into his players’ heads by making his accusations on the eve of an important three-game series between Chicago and Cleveland. Comiskey then borrowed a song from the Insurrectos’ song book and reiterated that Johnson was hoping for an Indians pennant because Cleveland was a team in which Johnson had a financial interest.

But, according to Harry Grabiner’s diary, Johnson’s motives were even more nefarious than a mere attempt to unsettle the White Sox during their late-season chase of the Indians. Johnson had been conducting his own investigation into the alleged fix and by June had more than enough evidence to move forward with a case against Comiskey and the alleged participants, but he patiently waited for Judge Charles A. McDonald to be appointed chief justice of the Cook County criminal court in Chicago. Johnson and McDonald had been friends since 1912 and both were members of the Woodland Bards. On July 6, McDonald was elected to the seat. On September 7 he succeeded Judge Robert E. Crowe and immediately directed the grand jury to investigate the gambling scandals, ignoring the Cubs-Phillies game of August 31, and focusing instead on the Black Sox. According to Grabiner, it was all part of a plot to exterminate Comiskey so Johnson could purchase the White Sox and turn it over to another of his allies.

“Johnson’s plan as it unfolds here,” wrote Bill Veeck in The Hustler’s Handbook, “was to harass and humiliate Comiskey, through McDonald and the Grand Jury hearing, so that Comiskey would be only too happy to sell out. The plan, always referred to by Grabiner as ‘the Conspiracy,’ was hatched in June…’Johnson remarked that Comiskey has a wonderful plant and great money-maker but after we get through wrecking it we will be able to buy it at our own price.’”

Chapter Eight: The Mystery of His Religion

While the month began on a sour note for Comiskey, the Red Sox turned their fortunes around and won 16 of 26 in August to climb back into fifth place and to within four games of .500. Pratt continued to lead the team in batting, boasting a .332 mark at month’s end, and Sam Jones won his 20^th game on August 28 in relief of Joe Bush. Off the field issues began to creep in, however. On August 29, Harry Frazee’s wife filed for divorce. Then, less than a week later, the machinations of a smear campaign fostered by one of the countries wealthiest and most influential figures reared its ugly head and Frazee found himself battling allegations that were not only untrue, but extremely unsettling.

The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper borne of automobile pioneer Henry Ford’s desire to share his views with the American public that would serve as “a private apparatus for molding public opinion,” ran an article on September 3 called “Jewish Gamblers Corrupt American Baseball,” in which the paper asserted that “American baseball can be saved if a clean sweep is made of the Jewish influence which has just dragged it through period of bitter shame and demoralization.”

Automobile pioneer Henry Ford used his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, to spew his anti-Semite views in a series of articles called “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem”

The article went on to explain why the “Jewish Idea in sport, instead of being preservative, is corruptive” and that the Jews were, by and large, responsible for the Black Sox gambling scandal. The article linked Albert Lasker to Alfred Austrian, Comiskey’s lawyer. Both men were friends with Hartley Replogle, the attorney whose job it was to prosecute the case. Then, of course, there was Arnold Rothstein, another Jew who was referred to as “the man higher up” and a “slick Jew” and who allegedly served as the front man in the scandal, although he was never convicted of any crime. Rothstein was represented at the Black Sox trial by Austrian. Abe Attel and Billy Maharg were also named and it was estimated that 10 gamblers, “all Jews,” made as much as $250,000 on the fix.

Later in the article, Comiskey was referred to as “one of the most impressive examples in the country today of a good Irishman being entirely eclipsed by a Jew,” the Jew in this case being the “Old Roman’s” secretary, Harry Grabiner, who was essentially running the team due to Comiskey’s failing health. Grabiner was charged with “pushing himself forward in a manner that has indelibly and unpleasantly impressed nearly every sport writer in America.” Grabiner’s “methods” were called “wholly characteristic of what the Americanized Jew calls the ‘kikes’.” He was also accused of under reporting Comiskey Park’s gate receipts in an effort to keep visiting teams from their rightful share of money garnered from paid attendance.

The Independent later called attention to Barney Dreyfuss and his intent to “discredit the National Commission under cover of rottenness” with his “insistent demand that the National Commission, the ruling body in baseball, of which Ban B. Johnson is the acknowledged leader, should be abolished, and another plan, the ‘Lasker Plan,’ substituted.” The paper called it an “anti-Johnson move and nothing else, and it was led by a Jew whose principal followers were the rapidly increasing group of Jewish controllers of American baseball.”

The article concluded with: “The only fact of value brought out of all the trouble is that American baseball has passed into the hands of the Jews. If it is to be saved, it must be taken out of their hands until they have shown themselves capable of promoting sports for sports’ sake. If it is not taken out of their hands, let it be widely announced that baseball is another Jewish monopoly, and that its patrons may know what to expect.”

A week later the Independent published the second article in the series, called “Jewish Degradation of American Baseball,” and it was this one that implicated Frazee and brought to light a sinister underlining in his feud with Johnson. The articled averred that “All that a Jew needs to make him eligible to baseball or any other sport on the same terms with other people, is to develop a sportsman’s spirit” and that “the forces that favored turning baseball into afternoon vaudeville were Jews, and those who favored keeping the game as part of American outdoor sports were non-Jews.”

The Independent claimed that one of Johnson’s enemies threatened to “get him,” but that “so far as his prestige is concerned, so far as his character and reputation are concerned, they did not ‘get’ him.” Later it stated that “Johnson is anything but anti-Semitic. He probably has never stopped to think about such a thing. He has never been known to attack Jews as Jews. But he has stood for straight baseball, and for so standing he has won the enmity of the Jews in baseball.”

One of those Jews in baseball was purported to be Frazee, who was actually Presbyterian, which ironically was the same denomination observed by Johnson’s parents and grandparents, and a Mason.

Chapter Nine: The Cause of All the Trouble: “Jumpin” Joe Dugan and a New Trade Deadline

June ended with the Red Sox still in last place and the Browns holding the same two and a half game lead they had in the middle of the month. July didn’t go much better; in fact it was the team’s worst month of the season. After an 8-0 drubbing to the White Sox on July 19 dropped the Red Sox to 36-51, Frazee read his team the riot act and threatened to start trading off players if they didn’t improve. The players responded by drawing up a petition that cited their dissatisfaction with how Frazee was running the team and invited him to sell his interest in the club. Instead the Red Sox owner did what many believed he would before the season started—he traded Joe Dugan to the Yankees. On July 23, Frazee sent Dugan and hard-hitting right fielder Elmer Smith to New York for outfielder Elmer Miller, shortstop Johnny Mitchell, utility man Chick Fewster, a player to be named later—pitcher Lefty O’Doul would eventually go to the Sox to complete the trade on October 12—and the previously rumored $50,000.

Dugan was hitting .287 with 22 doubles at the time of the trade, but had struggled in the field, posting below average fielding percentages at both third base and shortstop, and had established a reputation as being temperamental. Smith was second on the team in homers with six and in slugging at .472, but he’d also struggled defensively. They were both regulars in the Red Sox lineup, though. The Yankees who went to Boston in return had been bench warmers in New York. Miller hit .267 with three homers in 51 games and Fewster hit only .242 in 44 games, but both played well in the outfield in Ruth’s absence; Mitchell had only four at-bats in four games, and O’Doul was a highly touted hurler and batter who’d gone 25-9 for the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals in 1921 while batting .338.

Neither Dugan nor Smith were happy in Boston and there was speculation that the former hadn’t been giving his best out on the field. Regardless James O’Leary predicted the trade would cause an uproar around baseball. “The trading of Dugan, who was regarded as one of the best players on the Boston club, will undoubtedly cause a howl from the fans, and the fact that he goes to New York whither so many other Boston stars have gone will not have a tendency to reconcile the Boston fans to the change.” But it wasn’t just the fans that started to howl; backlash from the deal came from all directions. Tris Speaker called the trade a “crime” and claimed that Dugan and Smith by themselves, let alone both of them together, were worth more than the four players the Red Sox received in return and insisted that he would have parted with better talent for Smith alone had Frazee been more reasonable during negotiations. White Sox manager Kid Gleason recounted how he had been rebuffed in his efforts to acquire Dugan and that Frazee had told him the third baseman wasn’t available. Suddenly Dugan was a Yankee.

In an article titled “Dugan Deal Causes Storm of Protests,” the New York Times quoted Paul Shannon of the Boston Post and Burt Whitman of the Boston Herald, neither of whom was happy with the trade. Shannon corroborated Gleason’s account and went so far as to report that the White Sox had allegedly offered more money for Dugan than the Yankees had for Ruth, but Frazee turned them down to acquire “three or four players of doubtful ability.” He also called Frazee’s insistence that no money was involved in the transaction “laughable.” Whitman called the deal “disgusting” and insisted that it offended good sportsmanship. He too commented on Frazee’s claim that the deal only included players, stating that if he didn’t get at least $50,000 in the deal he was “sorely worsted by the Yankees.” Lastly Whitman echoed Johnson’s sentiments that Frazee was, indeed, the “Champion Wrecker of the Baseball Age.

Chapter Ten: Frazee Gets His Price, Johnson Gets His Way

May would prove to be Boston’s worst month on the field—they won only nine of 23 games—but would provide many headlines around baseball and on Broadway. On May 6 the New York Times reported that Frazee would be producing a musical version of his hit comedy My Lady Friends, which would eventually become the smash mega-hit No, No, Nanette. Two weeks later it was announced that Colonels Huston and Ruppert had finally reached an agreement that would transfer Huston’s half of the team over to Ruppert, who would then become sole owner of the Yankees. Huston was reported to have gotten between $1,250,000 and $2,000,000. “Col Huston and I had no difficulty coming to an agreement, despite the fact that we failed to get together the first of the year,” Ruppert announced. “As a matter of fact we could have closed the deal three months ago, but I wanted the colonel to stick until we opened the new stadium, in which he was as vitally interested as I.” But rumors surfaced that the previous deal had fallen through because Ruppert insisted on a clause that would forbid Huston from reentering baseball as an owner for at least 10 years after he sold his share of the Yankees. Once that clause was eliminated, Huston was more than happy to part with his half of the budding dynasty.

Only a day later rumors surfaced again that Frazee was on the verge of selling the Red Sox, this time to a syndicate made up of men from Columbus, Ohio. It was a rumor that actually had teeth. U.J. Hermann, who still owned minority stock in the team called the reports “a little short of criminal” and denied them wholeheartedly. “I hate to take the bread and butter away from a lot of ‘hick town baseball experts,’” Hermann told reporters. “As regards the Columbus capitalists acquiring the team, that is bunk.”

Frank Chance, “The Peerless Leader,” was hired to manage the Red Sox in 1923 before Frazee sold the team in mid-July, but the team finished in last place for the second straight year

But Frazee, while denying that he had sold the team, admitted that negotiations were pending and that he had given the prospective buyers his price, reported to be around $1,250,000 and “not a cent less.” “If I get my price, I’ll sell,” Frazee announced. The syndicate was made up of Palmer Winslow, an Indiana millionaire who had made his fortune in the glassworks industry, E.M. Schoenborn, former president of the Columbus franchise in the American Association and Dr. Robert M. Drury. Heading the group and leading the negotiations was Bob Quinn, former vice-president and business manager of the St. Louis Browns. Quinn had been promised to be named president of the Red Sox if he could broker a deal with Frazee.

The Sporting News took one last shot at the unpopular Red Sox owner before he rode off into the sunset. “Regardless of the sporting angle he wrecked his Boston team whenever the occasion arose to make a deal for money profit…to put into the show business. Now he can confine his activities to that, which he has established through his profits from the national game, for finally he became so unendurable that he was bought out…”

Upon completion of the sale in mid-July, James O’Leary of the Boston Globe reported that a group of men, including Frazee and Johnson, dined together at the Copley Plaza in Boston and that the two bitter enemies were “as affable as long lost brothers.”

But Ban Johnson was delighted with the prospect of finally ridding himself and his league of Frazee and could barely contain his excitement. In a Sporting News article titled “Johnson Elated That Frazee Finally Is Out of Baseball”, the league head stated, “Frazee never knew baseball. He went into the game purely for money reasons. As a sportsman he was a total failure, but as a troublemaker he was a huge success.”

Chapter Eleven: No, No, Nanette

All hadn’t been especially well for Harry Frazee, however. His musical production of No, No, Nanette, which was based on the farce My Lady Friends, was becoming a farce behind the scenes and driving him deeper into the bottle. Frazee, already a heavy drinker, was drunk almost daily—he carried a satchel full of booze with him everywhere he went so he could toss a few back at the slightest provocation. He drank even more when he had cause to celebrate. He had hired Frank Mandel, Otto Harbach, and Vincent Youmans to turn the farce into a musical and it was slow going.

Mandel was one of two playwrights who had successfully turned May Edington’s 1919 story His Lady Friends into the hit comedy My Lady Friends. The writer suggested to Frazee that he hire Harbach, another writer and lyricist with whom he had worked on several occasions, most notably on George Cohan’s musical comedy, Mary. The decision was an easy one for Frazee. The two writers helped Cohan turn Mary into a hit—it ran for seven months and 220 performances at the Knickerbocker Theatre from October 18, 1920 to April 23, 1921—and Frazee already had a working relationship with Harbach, who had written the producer’s first big hit, Madame Sherry, in 1910 and A Pair of Queens, in 1916. Youmans was a composer who had made a name for himself at the age of 24 when he wrote the music for Arthur Hammerstein’s smash hit, Wildflower, in 1923. Youmans and Harbach worked on Wildflower together along with the legendary Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom Harbach had a long and lasting professional relationship.

Otto Harbach (far right) wrote Frazee’s first hit, Madame Sherry, in 1910 and helped the producer turn No, No, Nanette into one of the most successful musicals of the 20th century

The four men represented a Murderer’s Row of Broadway; a smash hit was almost guaranteed. Yet months had passed since Frazee announced his intention of turning My Lady Friends into a musical comedy and the production resembled anything but a hit. Anna Wheaton, who was slated to play Nanette’s friend Lucille Early, was giving Harbach and Youmans grief about some of the songs they had written for her and Harbach feared she was losing patience with them. Francis X. Donegan, who played Lucille’s husband Billy, was jealous of Wheaton and wanted new songs as well. “Skeets” Gallagher, who played Jimmy Smith, the male lead, was a vaudeville comedian who couldn’t remember his lines and resorted to telling jokes instead. And the director, Edward Royce, was exhausted.

To make matters worse, Frazee, impaired by alcohol and bad judgment, made a monumental error when he tabbed his flavor of the week, Phyllis Cleveland, to play Nanette. “She’s my new find,” Frazee told the writers. “Picked her right out of a stock company in Boston. She can act. She can sing. She can dance. When those yokels out front get a load of her as Nanette, she’ll be a big star. You watch.”

Just weeks before the musical was scheduled to open in Detroit, Harbach implored lyricist Irving Caesar to join the staff and help them pen some clever numbers. The 29-year-old Caesar had already enjoyed success when he wrote the hit song “Swanee” with George Gershwin in 1919. Harbach knew Caesar worked fast and could produce quality lyrics on command, which is exactly what was needed. Frazee almost hit the roof when he learned that Harbach had hired Caesar behind his back. When Harbach introduced Caesar to Frazee, he was apoplectic. “Another writer?” he bellowed, while simultaneously reaching down into his trusty satchel for a drink. “I bought a story by one writer, a play by two more, then hired three for this show—and now a new one!” He tossed back a glass full of bourbon, then pointed at Harbach. “You pay him out of your share,” Frazee demanded. “This show’s already costing me a fortune.”

Chapter Twelve: A State of Imperfect Clarity

After a year long battle with Bright’s disease, an inflammation of the kidneys, Frazee died at his Park Avenue apartment in New York on June 4. He was only 48-years-old. Mayor Jimmy Walker, Frazee’s wife Margaret, and his son Harry Jr. were at his side when he passed. “Harry Frazee was one of the most popular figures in the theatrical and baseball worlds,” Walker later said at City Hall. “His was a unique character—unique in his friendship for others—and he was immensely popular with everyone who knew him. He was a man of great energy, great mental ability, and was greatly respected in the business and baseball world.” Walker gave the eulogy at Frazee’s funeral on June 7 and Masonic rites were performed by a chaplain from the Bellaire Masonic Lodge of Chicago, of which Frazee was a member.

Ten days after his death the New York Times published a report that Frazee left his widow and son less than $50,000. “For years he seemed to possess the golden touch, but recently it was reported among his associates that his fortune had dwindled. His more recent ventures were less fortunate and he always was a generous spender.” It was also reported that Yes, Yes, Yvette was “unfortunate and cost him heavy losses.” Glenn Stout claimed that Frazee actually left an estate worth well over a million dollars, which was partially true. His gross worth was estimated at $1,152,390, but his net worth was significantly less, coming in at $283,688. His widow received $94,562, while his son was given the other two-thirds, which came to $189,125.

“The bulk of the estate consisted of securities worth $715,286,” reported the Times, “but, because of the shrinkage in his holdings, stocks appraised at $507,425 when he died are now worth not more than a tenth of that sum, and on present figures the estate would have been insolvent. He had debts of $648,860.” Of course all this was reported in 1933, four years after his death. There’s no doubt the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression depleted his estate. There’s also no question that he was worth far more than the $50,000 the New York Times reported. His gross worth was over a million when he died and was still valued at over a million four years later, but by the time his estate went through probate and creditors were paid off, it was worth far less…

Before the 1931 season could get underway, more sullen news hit Organized Baseball—Ban Johnson died at St. John’s Hospital in St. Louis on March 28 from complications from diabetes. He was 67 years old. It was the second blow the baseball world had suffered in two days. Only 16 hours before Johnson’s death, E.S. Barnard, who had succeeded Johnson as American League president in 1927, died suddenly of a heart attack while at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Johnson had spent much of his time traveling since resigning from his post, taking trips to California and Mexico, but had also been in and out of hospitals, especially over the last six months of his life. He had had a blood transfusion on February 18, but his vital organs were in a state of deterioration and it was only a matter of time before he finally succumbed to his illness. “Although he made a good fight,” Johnson’s personal physician, Dr. Robert Hyland, said,” his case was hopeless and death was expected for weeks.”

A.L. President E.S. Barnard died only 16 hours before Ban Johnson succumbed to complications from diabetes

The obligatory tributes dominated newspapers and The Sporting News dedicated an entire page to the former AL czar. Charles Comiskey wired condolences to both the Barnard and Johnson families. Though he and Johnson never truly reconciled, Comiskey sent his son to Johnson’s St. Louis hospital room to shake his hand before he died. Yankees manager Joe McCarthy called Johnson “a wonderful figure in baseball,” while Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson told reporters, “He [Johnson] was a fighter up to the time he died. He organized the American League in the face of insurmountable opposition and by means of a sterling will power and character placed it on a sound foundation.”

Within a two year span, the American League’s fiercest combatants, Frazee and Johnson, had passed.