If anyone wonders why Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees on December 26, 1919, they need look no further than this significant letter to fully understand the circumstances that occasioned the most memorable transaction in sports history. 

Frazee was a successful theatrical producer when he purchased the Boston Red Sox from Joseph Lannin in 1916. The cost of the team was $1,000,000 in total capital expenditures, but only $662,000 was in the form of cash. Frazee paid Lannin $400,000 upfront at the time of the sale, with the remaining $262,000 given as a three-year note due November 1, 1919. Unfortunately for Frazee, as this letter shows, his financial fortunes had turned in the time since. As the date neared for the note to be paid, Frazee found himself strapped for cash. In desperation, he asked Lannin for an extension on the note. Here, in this letter, Lannin gives his answer, and in doing so sets in motion the circumstances that led Lannin to sell Ruth's contract just two months later. 

In his one-page typed-signed letter, dated October 10, 1919, on Garden City Hotel letterhead (Lannin owned the New York hotel and lived there with his family), Lannin delivers the bad news to Frazee. In part: 

Dear Mr. Frazee:- I cannot consider giving an extension of time for the payment of the note for $262,000., with interest, due on November 1st, 1919, as per your request of yesterday. . . . I was also pleased to learn from you yesterday that you intend carrying this loan of $262,000. yourself and that you thought it possible that you would be able to pay it off as early as October 25th. If so, I will be very glad indeed to accept payment on that date, but I must insist on the payment on November 1st, as I have obligations I must meet at that time.

November 1st came and went, with no payment from Frazee. As Frazee scrambled to try and raise the money, Lannin continued to press him for it, to no avail. The most liquid asset Frazee had as the year wound down was his star baseball player, Babe Ruth, who was making headlines that winter with his ever-increasing salary demands. Feeling pressure on both ends, Frazee finally made the only decision that made sense to him: sell Babe Ruth's contract and alleviate two financial problems at the same time. So it was, on December 26, 1919, that Harry Frazee sold Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees for $100,000, plus a $300,000 loan, which was secured by using Fenway Park as collateral. The rest, as they say, is history. Ruth's arrival in New York made the New York Yankees the most dominant team in baseball for the next four and a half decades, while the Red Sox languished in the second division for most of that time. Lannin has signed the letter, "Joseph J. Lannin," in black fountain pen (grading 8/10). The letter (8.5x11") displays two vertical and three horizontal folds, as well as a few light creases. In Very Good condition overall. PSA has encapsulated the document and certified the signature as "Authentic." 

This letter, along with nearly every other surviving document relating to the sale of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, originates from the estate of Ed Barrow, who was manager of the Boston Red Sox at the time of the transaction, and soon after became the longtime business manager/general manager of the New York Yankees. Many years after Barrow's death, legendary collector Barry Halper purchased his entire business archive from the Barrow family, which included dozens of documents relating to Boston's historic sale of Ruth. (Barry Halper's collection is considered by many to have been the finest private baseball-memorabilia collection ever assembled.) In 1999, Halper sold nearly his entire collection at auction through Sotheby's in New York (the collection was so vast that it took over a week of twice-daily live auctions and three months of weekly internet sales to liquidate it). Lot 560 in the live-auction portion of the sale featured a large collection of documents relating to the sale of Ruth, from which this letter, as well as every other "sale of Ruth" document featured in this auction, originates. The entire content of Lot 560 in the 1999 Sotheby's Halper Collection auction has been consigned to this auction by the original purchaser, making this just the third time since 1919 that these historically significant documents will have traded hands.