Yankees Birthday of the Day: Red Ruffing

(Original Caption) Photo shows Red Ruffing about to autograph a baseball, during intermission at the third game of the World Series played at the Yankee Stadium. (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images) | Corbis via Getty Images

Babe Ruth is certainly the most famous trade/acquisition in Yankees’ history, probably in baseball history, and you could make the argument for in all of sports history. A big part of its fame relates to how much it almost immediately became a massive swindle, leading to the Red Sox being “cursed” for decades to come.

What gets lost in that move is the several others in which the Yankees very clearly got the better of Boston. Arguably the second-best was the trade for pitcher Red Ruffing, whose 121st birthday is today.

Charles Herbert “Red” Ruffing
Born: May 3, 1905 (Granville, IL)
Died: February 17, 1986 (Mayfield Heights, OH)
Yankees Tenure: 1930-46

Born in 1905 in Illinois to German immigrants, Charles Ruffing was one of five children born to John and Frances Ruffing. In his childhood, his family called him Charley, but in school he got the nickname “Red” due to his hair color, which would stick and follow him throughout his baseball career.

Ruffing’s father was a mine worker and at 13-years-old, Red quit school and joined his father and other family members in the mines. While there, he developed a reputation as a skilled baseball player on the mine company’s team. In addition to pitching, he was also a talented hitter and outfielder, but had to give that up after a work accident saw Ruffing’s foot crushed between mine cars. Four toes on Ruffing’s left foot had to be amputated, which led to him focusing on pitching, and doing that eventually earned him places in the minor leagues, and eventually a deal with the Boston Red Sox.

Despite having just turned 19 a few weeks prior, Ruffing was thrown right into the fire and given his MLB debut on May 30, 1924. He was sparingly used and hit hard before being sent down to the minors. Boston later recalled him in September 1924, and from the next season on, he would become a regular member of their rotation going forward. While he would have his moments and generally became the Red Sox “ace” over the next couple years (even earning a charter spot in the Red Sox Hall of Fame), he didn’t quite show signs of greatness in that time.

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As a team, the Red Sox were also going nowhere during Ruffing’s tenure with the teams. The Red Sox owners also inherited a financial mess from previous owner Harry Frazee — he of the Ruth sale. Needing to take off some financial pressure, in early May 1930, they decided to trade Ruffing to the Yankees in exchange for $50,000 and backup outfielder Cedric Durst.

Ruffing’s first two seasons in New York were both around average, but then he broke out in 1932, winning 18 games and putting up a league-leading 190 strikeouts. His 18 wins that year were nearly half as many as he had recorded in his seven seasons in Boston: 39. As a team, the Yankees also racked up 107 wins and swept the Cubs in the World Series for the first of Ruffing’s six championships.

Over the course of the 1932-42 seasons, Ruffing became one of the best pitchers in baseball. His 34.2 fWAR and 39.7 rWAR in that time rank among the best of the era, as he won 188 games with a 3.39 ERA (123 ERA+). He was named an All-Star on six occasions and won another five World Series rings. In the 1938, he threw two complete-game victories in another sweep of the Cubs, allowing just three total runs. Had the World Series MVP existed then, he would’ve been a strong choice. Ruffing was a star of the rotation as the team bridged the gap between the Ruth and Joe DiMaggio eras.

Towards the end of that 1932-42 run, Ruffing began to fall back more towards league average, as he began to deal with elbow pain from years of being a workhorse. He tried to hide it from the team and still gave them some solid years, but the end was on the horizon.

After 1942, Ruffing was drafted into the military to serve in World War II and missed the entirety of the next two seasons. When he returned, he still put up some solid numbers, but suffered a broken kneecap in 1946 after taking a comebacker off the knee. With Ruffing also now over 40, the Yankees decided to move on from him. Ruffing signed with the White Sox for 1947 in an effort to reach the 300-win mark, but he struggled and they too released him, ending his career.

Ruffing was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1967, but his induction is debated, as he has one of the highest ERAs of any pitcher voted in. He almost certainly wouldn’t have made it had he played for another team and hadn’t won six championships, but you also can’t take away what he did contribute for those titles.

After suffering from several medical ailments in his later years, Ruffing passed away from leukemia in 1986 at the age of 80. The Yankees eventually posthumously honored him with a Monument Park plaque in 2004, and his son was on hand for the honor. We wish him a happy birthday!

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.