Thursday, December 26, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, December 26, 2019 -- "100 Years Ago Today"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for nearly 25 years.

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"We can look back and see how remarkable it seems that a player of Ruth’s stature would be sold, but in its time, it wasn’t strange at all. Connie Mack famously sold off the core of his back-to-back-pennant-winning A’s teams, including Hall of Famers Eddie Collins ($50,000) and Frank Baker ($37,500), after they lost the 1914 World Series. The Red Sox, prior to Frazee buying the team, had sold Tris Speaker to the Indians for $55,000 and a couple of players (one of whom, Sad Sam Jones, went on to a long career). Branch Rickey would later become known for controlling large numbers of prospects largely for the purposes of selling them -- and taking a cut of the proceeds."