January 11, 1915: Jacob Ruppert Buys the Yankees

January 11, 1915: Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston buy the New York Yankees. Professional sports in America will never be the same.

Jacob Ruppert Jr. was born on August 5, 1867 in Manhattan. What does a New York business lord, who would have been nothing without his father's money, do when he gets bored? He runs for office and buys a sports team.

Unlike Donald Trump, this one stayed a Democrat, and ran for office first, being elected to Congress in 1898, 1900, 1902, 1904 and 1906. But, again like Trump, he had a lousy attendance record -- as did a New York business lord friend of his who had also been elected to Congress, William Randolph Hearst. (Ruppert's friends called him "Jake." Although Hearst's friends called him "Willie," he is definitely not to be confused with the much later Yankee 2nd baseman, Willie Randolph.)

Eventually, Ruppert got bored with running the family brewery again, and tried to buy the New York Giants baseball team, owned by Harry Hempstead, son-in-law of their former owner, the late John T. Brush. Team manager John McGraw told him the Giants weren't for sale, but that the New York Yankees might be. So he bought them in 1915. In this, as in politics, he had a better record than Trump, once the owner of the USFL's New Jersey Generals.

His partner, Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, was born on July 17, 1867 in Buffalo, and grew up in Cincinnati. He became a U.S. Army engineer, serving in the Spanish-American War, where "Til" Houston became "Cap" Huston. A baseball fan, he became friends with McGraw, and thought he had a deal to buy the Chicago Cubs from Charles Phelps Taft, a fellow Cincinnatian and half-brother of former President William Howard Taft. But it fell apart. McGraw introduced Huston to Ruppert, and they teamed up.

Frank Farrell and Bill Devery were the original owners of the New York Yankees, who were the New York Highlanders from their 1903 founding until 1912. They had not done well, either on the field or at the box office, and, as one team historian put it, they were sick of baseball and sick of each other, and wanted out. Ruppert and Huston spent $460,000 -- about $12.8 million in 2022 money.

When World War I broke out, Huston went back into the Army, and rose to the rank of Colonel. Ruppert had enlisted in the New York National Guard at age 19, and stayed in it, also rising to the rank of Colonel. So Ruppert and Huston became known as "The Colonels," but while Ruppert liked being called "Colonel Ruppert," Huston liked keeping his old nickname of "Cap."

What Huston didn't like was that, before the 1918 season, Ruppert hired a new manager without even contacting him. It didn't matter that the manager was a fellow Cincinnatian: It was done without Huston's okay, and the relationship between the Colonels was forever damaged. He was a former good-field-no-hit 2nd baseman, who had been managing the St. Louis Cardinals, and had a law degree: Miller Huggins.

In 1920, Ruppert bought Babe Ruth -- just in time, because Prohibition had come and he needed a source of income. An urban legend says that Ruppert designed the Yankee's Pinstriped uniforms because they made Ruth look thinner. This isn't true: Ruth wasn't fat yet, and the Yankees first wore Pinstripes in 1912, before Ruppert bought the team. Nor were they the first team to wear them: The Giants, among others, had.

In 1923, he built the original Yankee Stadium and signed Lou Gehrig. He also bought out Huston's share, letting him stay along long enough to take in some of the glory of the Stadium, which, as an engineer, he appreciated. When Huston died in 1938, none of the current Yankees had even met him.

Ruppert built the Yankee farm system, with general manager Ed Barrow and farm system director George Weiss, who eventually became GM himself. This included the Newark Bears and the Kansas City Blues, both of whom played in ballparks that would be named Ruppert Stadium.

In 1934, Ruppert signed Joe DiMaggio. By the time he died, on January 13, 1939, of phlebitis at the age of 71, he had overseen 10 American League Pennants and 7 World Series wins, and built the greatest team and the greatest stadium in the history of North American sports.

On April 16, 1940, a plaque was placed on the outfield wall at Yankee Stadium, its image of Ruppert derived from the photograph above. It was moved to Monument Park in 1976, and to the new Yankee Stadium in 2009, so it no longer rests in what its text calls "this imposing edifice."

For some reason -- probably more an oversight as much as anything else -- it took until 2013 to elect him to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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January 11, 1915 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. Basketball was in its early stages. And the closest thing hockey had to major leagues -- the National Hockey Association in the East and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in the West -- had their seasons underway, but played no games. So there were no scores on this historic day.