July 1, 2004

Habeas Corpus and Harry Frazee. Eric Alterman has a rundown of Monday's historic Supreme Court rulings. He quotes Eric Rauchway, a history professor at University of California, Davis, who believes the decisions are "the most significant and sustained rulings on [habeas corpus] since Milligan, possibly ever."

Rauchway has also written about Harry Frazee, the sale of Babe Ruth and the Broadway play "No No Nanette". Glenn Stout's research for "Red Sox Century" seemed to prove that any link between these three things is part and parcel of the Curse hokum perpetrated by the CHB and repeated ad nauseum by the sports media (including ESPN's Chris Berman last night), but Rauchway, in looking at newspaper accounts of Frazee's business dealings in the mid-1920s, sees a connection.

No comments: