I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun.

The line trades on Ruth’s larger-than-life public persona: a man willing to moderate certain excesses (drinking, late nights) but refusing to surrender what he frames as the chief pleasure of celebrity—romantic and sexual freedom. The escalating sums underscore that even substantial financial pressure cannot buy his compliance, casting the remark as both boast and defiance. Read in its cultural moment, it reflects the permissive, male-centered celebrity ethos of early 20th‑century sports stardom, where appetites were often treated as part of the legend. It also reveals how Ruth’s fame was intertwined with tabloid-ready narratives of indulgence, which could be marketed as charm even when morally criticized.