Red Ruffing joined the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox in 1930, going from one of the worst teams in baseball to the best in a move incited by the Red Sox financial issues at the time. Ruffing, previously thought to be a bust, immediately began to win with the Yankees, going 15-5 in his first year in pinstripes. Ruffing would go on to obtain 231 of his 273 career wins with the Yankees, the most in team history until Whitey Ford beat his record by a mere five wins. Ruffing likely would have exceeded the 300-win mark had he not lost a solid two and a half seasons due to service in World War II. Ruffing, who lost four toes in a childhood coal mining accident, went 20-2 during wartime baseball games against other servicemen, once throwing a no-hitter against a team of military men led by his teammate Joe DiMaggio. Ruffing returned to the Majors in 1945, pitching two more seasons for the Yankees before ending his career as a Chicago White Sox hurler in 1947. The six-time World Series champion was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.

Offered here is Ruffing’s 1945 contract with the Yankees. The Yankees paid Ruffing $19,000 for a season of his “skilled service as a baseball player in connection with all games of the Club during the year 1945”. Ruffing signed this contract on June 19th, 1945, and he would make his season debut as a pinch hitter on July 16th, going 1-1 with an RBI in his return to the Big Leagues. Ruffing made 11 starts in 1945, going 7-3 with a 2.89 ERA for the 81-71 Yankees. This item comes with a LOA from JSA.

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