Ruth, Gehrig and Shoeless Joe

[Shoeless Moe]

I've been thinking about this and not sure if its been brought up before, but why was Ruth in the OF and Gehrig at 1B. Looking back didn't Ruth have the 1B body and wasn't Gehrig more than athletic enough to play the OF?

Also, found this interesting tidbit on Wikipedia......man would boston have gotten screwed in that deal, not that they didn't regardless, but 1 year of SJJ wouldn't have been much for the next 15 years of Ruth.

"Frazee wanted to trade Ruth to the White Sox for Jackson, but the Black Sox Scandal scuttled those plans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Frazee

[Gmrson]

I think Frazee was shopping Ruth around. A friend of mine was fortunate to get a tour by the late Ernie Harwell to view his collection donated to the Detroit Public Library. Ernie saved many vintage letters that were in the discard pile when the Tigers were moving to the new ballpark. There were a few between the Tigers and Red Sox discussing Ruth. The best one he told me about was from Ty Cobb to the ticket man instructing him to leave tickets for two women listed as "prostitutes I have been frequenting". I guess things were different back then!

[arc2q]

Paul, just speculation but I would say Ruth's transition to the OF, rather than say 1B, was to accomodate him remaining in the Red Sox's pitching rotation. As he was a pitcher originally they wanted to get him in the everyday line-up on off days for his hitting, as we all know. Maybe the OF was more suitable as you want your 1B to be an everyday player who develops a chemistry with the rest of the infield.

If you look at photos of Ruth in his early days he is not the portly player we envision now. He has the classic look of a power hitting outfielder. Plus he certainly had the arm to make the long throws.

[Bugsy]

Ruth moved just fine when he was younger and had a rocket for an arm. It would have been wasted at first.

[howard38]

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