If they had been able to close this deal, the potential changes to history are mind-boggling. If Ruth had gone to Chicago, he would not have gone to Boston and, in turn, not have been sold to the Yankees. This scenario opens a litany of unanswerable questions. Here are a few.
1. What would Red Sox fans have used as an excuse for a century of World Series futility without the “Curse of the Bambino”?
2. What would Yankee Stadium have looked like without the short right field porch that was custom-made for the Babe?
3. What would have happened to the Yankee dynasty? Without Ruth’s contributions would they have won the World Series as often during his career in Chicago? Without those World Series victories, would as many ball players chased the dream of being a Yankee and perpetuating the Yankee dominance in the pre-draft era?
4. What would have happened in 1919 with Ruth in Chicago? What if the White Sox won the Series that year? Would “Shoeless Joe” have been one of the first class of H.O.F. inductees? Would all of the following generations of ballplayers have chased the White Sox dream? Would Chicago still be known as the “Second City”?
5. What if the gamblers bought Ruth, causing him to be blacklisted? Without the Babe, would the Deadball era have ended? What would the Baseball landscape have been like without his 714 homers?
I am sure that as I type this, somewhere, somebody is already putting together a first draft of a book based on these and who knows how many more “What-Ifs”. The possibilities are literally endless.
