These are the beginnings of the NY Yankees

The New York Yankees were created from day one with the expectation of being a winning team and dominating the American League, but their beginnings and origins are a good story to tell.

The team’s birthplace was in the prestigious Flatiron Building in Manhattan, where Ban Johnson, president of the then newly created American League, had relocated his Chicago offices.

Despite Manhattan having in the early 1900s, a city with 2,200 streets and almost 2.2 million inhabitants, by far the most valuable and populous city in the United States, they only had one major league baseball team: the New York Giants and a single stadium, the Polo Grounds.

Two years ago, Ban Johnson had started his war against the National League, managing to create a second professional league and recruiting many stars from the old circuit, also using the idea of ​​expanding the “King of Sports” to cities such as Detroit, Washington, Cleveland and Baltimore. This added to having cheaper prices for the entrance to the land, because unlike the National League, the American League of Ban Johnson, charged 0.25 cents per person, while its rivals had a minimum rate of 0.50 cents.

Johnson’s idea was to move the Orioles team from Baltimore (not today’s Orioles), to New York City, but this was not so easy. Johnson’s business rivals did their best to prevent it. John McGraw who was in those Orioles, had serious problems with Johnson who, as president of the League, frequently fined McGraw for his explosive character.

When McGraw finally negotiated his trade with Johnson to the Giants, there he joined Andrew Freeman, owner of the team and enemy of Johnson, together they devised a plan to prevent the creation of the new team.

McGraw and Freeman bought shares in the Orioles and once in control, they began to sell the best players, sending them to the National League. Examples of this were outfielder Joe Kelley, sold to Cincinnati, and pitcher Joe McGinnity to the Giants themselves. Both business rivals hoped that these moves would weaken the league chaired by Ban Johnson, creating boredom in the fans, as a very losing team in a league with few teams created a lot of weakness in the game schedule.

However, the persistence of Ban Johnson with his plan was incredible and created a clause within the league, with which he took control of the Orioles franchise with 51% and forced the rest of the owners in the American to reinforce Baltimore with players who were not starters on their teams but who had high potential. In this way, the Orioles survived the 1902 season and after it, the stage was set for Johnson’s move.

“We have taken our first official action in invading New York City,” Ban Johnson told the New York Times in the winter of 1902.

A franchise in the Big Apple was a very lucrative business and also the opportunity to prove how good the American League was, chaired by Johnson and for which he had fought so hard.

Despite all of Andrew Freeman’s attempts to stop the move, Johnson’s strategies were forceful. That winter, high-for-the-time offerings to Pittsburgh Pirates star players such as pitchers Jack Chesbro, Jess Tannehill, infield Wid Conroy and outfielder Lefty Davis, made them the first stars of the new New York team, along with Willie. Keeler who was on the old Baltimore team, and the White Sox arrival of pitcher and manager Clark Griffith.

To differentiate them from the Giants, the press began to call them the “New York Americans” and then they would become the Yankees, those who today hold 27 World Series titles in their palm groves and are considered the most popular team of all the baseball.