Sox In The National League?
By John Hatcher
Red Sox In The National League?
Well, not quite. But it almost happened in 1919.
The Sox had a pitcher at that time named Carl Mays. Mays was a righty, submarine style pitcher (think B.K. Kim) that had a serious attitude problem (again, think B.K. Kim). He ended up suspended for 10 days by the team during the season for insubordination. The Sox worked out a deal with the Yankees to sell Mays to them for $50,000 that July.
AL President Ban Johnson not only refused the sale, but then extended the suspension of Mays indefinitely. The Yankees filed a court injunction and won against Johnson. Then the Sox and Yankees, in a rare show of cohesion, joined forces with the White Sox and threatened to leave the AL and extend the National League to12 teams. They used this as leverage to get the other AL teams to subscribe to the Lasker Plan, which was the plan to make Kenesaw Landis the first commissioner of baseball. This reduced Johnson’s power and Landis quelled the dispute once he took office.
Think about the impact of this. If Johnson had won, he may have squashed the Ruth sale the following winter. Frazee may not have been able to dump their best players. And just think if they had gone to the NL. Would we still be waiting? All are things to think about.
And Mays? His attitude caught up to him the next year with the Yankees when he intentionally hit Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman in the head and killed him. He pleaded his innocence and was never the same after that. Two teams pushed to have him banned from baseball afterwards. One was Detroit. The other? That’s right. The Red Sox.
Source:
The Baseball Catalog
