This Day in Sports History

January 29, 1915 -- Jacob Ruppert and Col. Tillinghast L´Hommedieu Huston purchased the New York Yankees from the baseball team’s first owners, Frank Farrell and William S. Devery.

A certain member of the Tubridy family once went by the name of Ruppert. Unfortunately, if there’s any relation to the Yankee owner – whose family fortune was made in the brewery industry, and who earned his sobriquet “The Colonel” because of a short stint in the National Guard—it’s at best a distant one. Therefore, our family of diehard fans has been unable to score free tickets to the Bronx Bombers all these years, leaving us all the poorer (spiritually as well as financially).

At the time of the purchase, the franchise was a distinctly poor relation to the older occupants of the Polo Grounds, the New York Giants, managed by John J. McGraw, whose two-fisted style depended on defense, the hit-and-run, tight pitching, and getting in the face of umpires.

Within a few years, however, with the help of general manager Ed Barrow and managers Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy, Ruppert (who bought out Huston several years later) transformed the team into a powerhouse. Over the years, it has won 26 World Series, to say nothing of 39 American League pennants (even though I just said it).

Oh, yes—there was someone else involved in the team’s success early on—one George Herman Ruth, nicknamed “The Bambino” and “The Babe” – the transformative player who boosted attendance so much that it made possible a new home for the team in the Bronx—“The House That Ruth Built.”