TEAM HISTORY
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of two major league clubs based in New York City, the other being the National League's (NL) New York Mets. In 1903, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery purchased the franchise after it ceased operations and moved it to New York City, renaming the club the New York Highlanders. The Highlanders were officially renamed the New York Yankees in 1913.
The team is owned by Yankee Global Enterprises, an LLC that is controlled by the family of the late George Steinbrenner, who purchased the team in 1973. Brian Cashman is the team's general manager, and Aaron Boone is the team's field manager. The team's home games were played at the original Yankee Stadium from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. In 1974 and 1975, the Yankees shared Shea Stadium with the Mets, in addition to the New York Jets and the New York Giants. In 2009, they moved into a new ballpark of the same name that was constructed adjacent to the previous facility, which was closed and demolished. The team is perennially among the leaders in MLB attendance.
Arguably the most successful professional sports team in the United States, the Yankees have won 19 American League East Division titles, 40 American League pennants, and 27 World Series championships, all of which are MLB records. The team has won more titles than any other franchise in the four major North American sports leagues - after briefly trailing the NHL's Montreal Canadiens by one or two titles in the 1990s. Forty-four Yankees players and 11 Yankees managers have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter, with Rivera and Jeter having the two highest vote percentages of all Hall of Fame members. According to Forbes, the Yankees are the second-highest valued sports franchise in the United States and the second in the world, with an estimated value of approximately $5 billion. The team has garnered enormous popularity and a dedicated fanbase, as well as widespread enmity from fans of other MLB teams. The team's rivalry with the Boston Red Sox is one of the most well-known rivalries in North American sports.
In the years around 1920, the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Chicago White Sox had a détente. The trades between the three-ball clubs antagonized Ban Johnson and garnered the teams the nickname "The Insurrectos". This détente paid off well for the Yankees as they increased their payroll. Most new players who later contributed to the team's success came from the Red Sox, whose owner, Harry Frazee, was trading them for large sums of money to finance his theatrical productions. Pitcher-turned-outfielder Babe Ruth was the most talented of all the acquisitions from Boston, and the outcome of that trade would haunt the Red Sox for the next 86 years, a span in which the team did not win a single World Series championship. This phenomenon eventually became known as the Curse of the Bambino as the failure of the Red Sox and the success of the Yankees seemed almost supernatural and seemed to stem from that one trade. However, it was not until 1990 when Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe wrote a book with the same title that the curse was publicized.
The Yankees have won a record 27 World Series in 40 appearances (which, since the first World Series in 1903, currently amounts to an average appearance every 2.7 seasons and a championship every 4.0 seasons); the St. Louis Cardinals are in second place with 11 World Series championships. The Yankees' number of World Series losses, 13, is also an MLB record. The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers are second in total World Series appearances with 20. The Yankees have faced the Dodgers 11 times, going 8–3. Among North American major sports, the Yankees' success is approached only by the 24 Stanley Cup championships of the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League. The Yankees have played in the World Series against every National League pennant winner except the Houston Astros and the Colorado Rockies.
Ruth's multitude of home runs proved so popular that the Yankees began drawing more people than their National League counterpart, the Giants. In 1921 — the year after acquiring Ruth — the Yankees played in their first World Series. They competed against the Giants, and all eight games of the series were played in the Polo Grounds.
In 1923, the Yankees moved to their new home, Yankee Stadium, which took 11 months to build and cost $2.5 million. The team announced that 99,200 fans showed up on Opening Day and 25,000 were turned away. In the first game at Yankee Stadium, Ruth hit a home run. The stadium was nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built", due mainly to the fact that Ruth had doubled Yankees' attendance, which helped the team pay for the new stadium. At the end of the season, the Yankees faced the Giants in the World Series for the third straight year and won their first championship.
