Harry Herbert Frazee (June 29, 1880 – June 4, 1929) was an American theatrical agent, producer, and director, and owner of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from 1916 to 1923. He is well known for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, which started the alleged Curse of the Bambino.

Early life

Harry Frazee was born June 29, 1880, in Peoria, Illinois, son of William and Margaret Frazee. He attended Peoria High School, where he was a baseball teammate of Harry Bay, who later played for Major League Baseball teams in Cincinnati and Cleveland. At 16, Frazee became assistant manager of the Peoria Theater. Within a year, he was player-coach of the Peoria Distillers semi-pro baseball club. As his theatrical endeavors continued, Frazee moved to Chicago, where he built the Cort Theater in 1907.

After several successful shows, Frazee went to New York City, where in 1913 he built the Longacre Theatre on West 48th Street and staged hit plays such as Fine Feathers by Eugene Walter and the musical Adele. He also promoted a boxing match between Jess Willard and Jack Johnson on April 5, 1915 in Havana, Cuba and was reported by then to be a millionaire.

Frazee was a Freemason.

Owner of the Red Sox

Frazee bought the Boston Red Sox baseball team from Joseph Lannin for a reported $675,000 after their victory in the 1916 World Series. The Sox won another World Series title in 1918. The team finished sixth in 1919, and after that season Frazee started selling players to the New York Yankees, most notoriously Babe Ruth. He then left the Red Sox in bankruptcy while continuing to produce theatre shows. After the sale of Ruth, the team crashed into the American League cellar and did not finish above .500 until 1934. The Red Sox did not win another pennant until 1946, and did not win another World Series until 2004. The 86-year World Series drought is the third-longest in MLB history, trailing only the Chicago Cubs (108 years from 1908 to 2016) and Chicago White Sox (88 years from 1917 to 2005).

Frazee backed a number of New York theatrical productions (before and after Ruth's sale), the best-known of which is probably No, No, Nanette, which was once claimed, and later debunked, as the specific play that Ruth's sale financed (it was actually what paid off the Fenway Park mortgage that the Ruth sale included). He was the subject of an unflattering portrait in Fred Lieb's account of the Red Sox, which further insinuated that he had sold Ruth to finance a Broadway musical. This became a central element in the Curse of the Bambino.

The truth is more nuanced and has as much to do with a long-running dispute between Frazee and American League founder and president Ban Johnson as it does with Frazee's finances. Frazee was the first American League owner who Johnson had not essentially hand-picked, and was unwilling to simply do Johnson's bidding. Although they seemed to settle their differences when Frazee hired Ed Barrow, a friend of Johnson's, as manager, their relationship worsened again when Frazee loudly criticized Johnson's handling of the issues brought about by the United States entering World War I. For his part, Johnson was angered by the open presence of gamblers and bookies at Fenway Park. These factors led Johnson to actively seek to push Frazee out.

Additionally, Frazee's theater ventures didn't generate even a fraction of the capital needed to meet the Red Sox' expenses. He often found himself having to borrow from the Red Sox to meet his other commitments. Over the next three years, Frazee sold virtually all of the Red Sox' top players to the Yankees, netting him a total of $305,000.

  • Bullet Joe Bush—December 1921. Pitched in two pennant seasons for the Yankees. Traded for Rip Collins (pitcher), Roger Peckinpaugh, Bill Piercy, Jack Quinn.
  • Joe Dugan—July 1922. Played for five Yankee pennant teams. Traded for Chick Fewster, Elmer Miller, Johnny Mitchell, Lefty O'Doul.
  • Harvey Hendrick—January 1923. Never played for Red Sox; was in 1923 World Series with Yankees. Traded for Al DeVormer, who batted .254 after trade (Hendrick's lifetime average was .308).
  • Waite Hoyt—December 1920. Traded (with Harry Harper, Wally Schang, and Mike McNally) for Del Pratt, Muddy Ruel, Hank Thormahlen, and Sammy Vick. Hoyt pitched for the Yankees in ten seasons, and was in seven World Series (including the 1931 Series, with the Philadelphia A's).
  • Sad Sam Jones—December 1921. Traded with Joe Bush (q. v.). Pitched five seasons with Yankees.
  • Carl Mays—July 1919. Traded to Yankees for players Bob McGraw and Allan Russell.
  • Herb Pennock—January 1923. Traded to Yankees for Camp Skinner, Norm McMillan, and George Murray. Pennock stayed with the Yankees until 1933, pitching in five Series.
  • George Pipgras—January 1923. Traded to the Yankees for Al DeVormer (supra). Pipgras never played for Boston; his eleven-year career included three Yankee pennant seasons.
  • Wally Schang—December 1920. Traded to the Yankees for Pratt, Ruel, Thormahlen, and Vick. Caught for three Yankee pennant teams.
  • Everett Scott—traded along with Joe Bush (q.v.). Scott set the consecutive-game playing record it took Lou Gehrig to break.
  • Elmer Smith—July 1922. Traded to Yankees with Joe Dugan (q. v.). Was famous as first player (with Indians in 1920) to hit grand slam homer in World Series.

The above only includes the trades Frazee made to the Yankees from 1918 to 1923, when he was owner of the Red Sox. The Encyclopedia lists about 40 trades in all made by the Red Sox in those years, including to teams other than the Yankees.

It has been argued that the deals with the Yankees made a modicum of sense at the time, and only a stroke of bad luck turned them into Yankee heists. Notably, the players sent to Boston suffered a rash of injuries