March 24, 1911: The 1st Female Owner of a Major League Sports Team

March 24, 1911: Stanley Robison -- note there's only one N, so it's not "Robinson" -- dies in Cleveland. He was 56 years old. He was the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. He and his brother, Frank Robison, had owned them from 1899 until Frank's death in 1908.

Stanley had no children to leave the team to. So ownership passed to Frank's child. Not his son, because he didn't have one. His daughter. She became the 1st woman to own a major league sports team.

Helene Hathaway Robison was born on January 30, 1879 in Cleveland, and grew up in nearby Bratenahl, Ohio. It was one of Cleveland's "streetcar suburbs," one of many towns that went up near major cities because streetcar lines went to them. In Helene's case, that was no accident: Her father Frank and her uncle Stanley owned streetcar lines.

It was because of this that, in 1887, they founded a baseball team, the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, and built the team's League Park on one of their streetcar lines. They bought advertising suggesting that fans get to the game on their line.

In 1899, the Robison brothers bought the St. Louis Cardinals. Owning 2 teams at once was called "syndicate baseball," and it would be legal for another few years. They transferred the Spiders' best players to St. Louis, resulting in a complete shift in fortunes. The Cardinals went from 39-111 to 84-67, while the Spiders went from a decent 81-68 to the most indecent record in Major League Baseball history: 20-134. After the season, the Spiders were 1 of 4 teams eliminated.

And yet, that was as good as it would get for the Cardinals. By 1902, they were 44 1/2 games out of 1st place. They bottomed out in 1908, the year Frank Robison died: 49-105. Helene had married a lawyer, and had a son and a daughter, and was 32 years old when uncle Stanley died in 1911, and she inherited a terrible team, playing in a wooden ballpark, Robison Field, named for her dad and uncle. Their best player, and their manager, was star catcher Roger Bresnahan, and, although also 32, he was nearing the end of the line.

And yet, in 1911, the Cards went 75-74, the team's 1st winning season in 10 years. But this turned out to be a false dawn, as they never had another winning season while she owned the team. With the rise of the automobile, fewer people were taking streetcars, and so the Robison family's biggest source of income shrank. The Federal League of 1914-15, and the salary war it started, meant that she wasn't able to keep the team going, and it fell into debt. She wasn't able to keep her marriage going, either: She got divorced in 1916.

On March 2, 1917, Helene sold out to minor stockholder James C. Jones. He hired Branch Rickey as team president. Rickey was happy to get away from the crosstown St. Louis Browns, and he began to rebuild the Cardinals. He also moved them from the wooden, outdated Robison Field into Sportsman's Park, renting from the Browns.

Helene Britton, the 1st female owner of a major league sports team, was a failure in that capacity -- not because she was a woman, but because she gained the team through inheritance without being properly prepared. She moved to Boston, remarried, was later widowed, and moved to Philadelphia, where she died on January 8, 1950, at 71. Since she sold the Cardinals, they had won 9 National League Pennants. Apparently, the best thing she could have done for them was sell them.

Through the start of the 2022 season, 9 women have been majority owners of a Major League Baseball team:

1. Helen Britton, St. Louis Cardinals, 1911-17.

2, Grace Comiskey, Chicago White Sox, 1939-56.

3. Joan Payson, New York Mets, 1962-75.

4. Lorinda de Roulet, New York Mets, 1975-80.

5. Jean Yawkey, Boston Red Sox, 1976-92.

6. Joan Kroc, San Diego Padres, 1984-90.

7. Marge Schott, Cincinnati Reds, 1984-99.

8. Muriel Kauffman, Kansas City Royals, 1993-95.

9. Jackie Autry, Los Angeles Angels, briefly in 1998.

Mrs. Payson and Mrs. de Roulet were mother and daughter. Mrs. Payson and Mrs. Schott remain the only 2 women ever to buy an MLB team as majority owners, rather than inheriting the team from a husband or a male relative.

Ironically, none of these women would become the 1st woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That turned out to be Effa Manley, who co-owned, with her husband Abe, the Negro Leagues' Newark Eagles from 1935 to 1948.

Mrs. Payson's Mets won the 1969 World Series. Mrs. Kroc's Padres won the 1984 National League Pennant. Mrs. Yawkey's Red Sox won the 1986 American League Pennant. And Mrs. Schott, as noxious as her political views were, led the Reds to win the 1990 World Series.

When George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees handed the team over to his children, it was to all 4: 2 sons, Hal and Hank; and 2 daughters, Jennifer Swindal and Jessica Lopez. But Hal is the main owner, and while he's given his sisters major roles within the organization, neither is anything like a general manager or a director of scouting.

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March 24, 1911 was a Friday. Joseph Barbera, who wrote, produced and created TV cartoons with William Hanna, was born on this day.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And hockey had just become fully professional. The Ottawa Senators had won the Stanley Cup 2 weeks earlier. So there were no scores on this historic day.