Babe Ruth Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees amid controversy. The trade fueled Boston's subsequent 86 year championship drought and popularized the "Curse of the Bambino" superstition. In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth helped the team win seven American League (AL) pennants and four World Series championships. His big swing led to escalating home run totals that not only drew fans to the ballpark and boosted the sport's popularity but also helped usher in baseball's live-ball era, which evolved from a low-scoring game of strategy to a sport where the home run was a major factor.
Babe Ruth of the significant social changes that marked the early 1920s. In his history of the Yankees, Glenn Stout noted that "Ruth was New York incarnate—uncouth and raw, flamboyant and flashy, oversized, out of scale, and absolutely unstoppable". During his lifetime, Ruth had become a symbol of the United States. During World War II, Japanese soldiers could think of no greater insult than to yell in English, "To hell with Babe Ruth", to anger American soldiers. Ruth replied that he hoped that "every Jap that mention[ed] my name gets shot". Creamer recorded that "Babe Ruth transcended sport and moved far beyond