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Trivia note: He used the cash to finance the show No, No, Nanette!

Not quite. He did use the money involved in the Ruth deal for his theatric productions, but it was with the proceeds of his sale of the Red Sox club itself in 1923 by which he financed No, No, Nanette in short order (and it took a few months, a few remakes, and a few hit engagements on the road before the show broke big in New York in 1925-26). Technically, it wasn't Babe Ruth who was traded for the biggest hit of Frazee's career as a producer.

Even so, believe it or not, the Red Sox could have survived the loss of Ruth. At the time Frazee made the deal, he was looking to strike a cash deal with the White Sox for outfielder Happy Felsch - until Felsh became exposed as one of the infamous Eight Men Out. Felsch was certainly no Ruth, but his skills as they were would have made him a better than useful player in Fenway Park.

Meanwhile, the real "Curse of the Bambino" came not so much because Babe Ruth went to the Yankees - but because, as security for the $300,000 Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert floated to Frazee, take a wild guess what Frazee put up as the collateral: Fenway Park itself. Read this carefully, ladies and gentlemen: The New York Yankees in effect held the title to Fenway Park until the Frazee loan could be retired, as it was after John T. Quinn bought the Red Sox from Frazee in 1923. And, in the interim, because he held Frazee's mortgage, Ruppert - don't condemn him, he wasn't doing anything any other astute magnate wouldn't have done - wouldn't be singing anything but "I'm Just Wild About Harry," because Frazee was in no position to say no (not unless he wanted his note called in post haste, he wasn't) whenever Jake the Brewmeister decided this or that Red Sox player or prospect would be a perfect fit for a Yankee uniform.

If all Frazee had done was trade Babe Ruth, the Sox could have survived. And, they might even have been pennant winners in their own right. The Babe was the biggest gate attraction and the most statistically singular player in the league, but here's the tally for the first decade of the Yankee dynasty: six pennants, three World Series titles (1923, 1927, 1928). They could have won the 1926 Series in the seventh game, except for a certain right fielder, who basically ran like a beach ball with legs from the knees down only, that was unable to stop scratching his itch to steal - the worst of his baseball skills - in the bottom of the ninth with two out, getting thrown out by about three miles and taking the bat out of Bob Meusel's hand...with Lou Gehrig on deck. (This was the game in which Grover Cleveland Alexander came out of the bullpen to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded - in the seventh inning; it was a special performance by a no-questions-asked Hall of Fame pitcher reaching back for one more bolt of glory, but it didn't cost the Yankees the Series - they had two more cracks at it until Ruth took the bat out of Meusel's hands.)

What did come from the Red Sox to solidify any "curse" and the Yankee coming-of-age was more than Babe Ruth. He was the marquee man, no questions asked. But if the names Bullet Joe Bush, Jumpin' Joe Dugan, Waite Hoyt, Sad Sam Jones, Herb Pennock, Wally Schang, and Deacon Scott sound familiar, they should - be advised that these celebrated-enough Yankees of the 1920s, who helped fill out the team and set them up to win those six 1920s pennants, were feathers plucked off the Red Sox rooster to join the erstwhile Sox phenomenon named Ruth and start that Bronx dynasty. No less than three of their Red Sox plucks became Hall of Famers: Ruth, Pennock and Hoyt. Real Red Sox fans still think about how many pennants the Red Sox might have won with the Babe and those gentlemen staying in Fenway.

The Curse of the Bambino, properly construed, is in fact the Curse of Broadway. It comforts us Red Sox fans little enough, but history does have its claim, too.

Classic comment: Babe Ruth, writing in due course of dickering with the contract dispute that helped prod Frazee to think about selling him: After helping the Red Sox win another pennant and the World Series in the last war year, I wanted more money from Frazee. I put my price at $10,000 and felt I had it coming. (He did. There's no question but the Red Sox would not have won the 1918 pennant and Series without him.) But Frazee yelled as if I were trying to rob the cash drawer at the old Frazee Theatre in New York. For $10,000 he said he'd expect at least John Barrymore. I asked him what good Barrymore's profile would be with the bases loaded in a tight ball game.