The ownership of American League Baseball past and present

The New York Yankees began as the Baltimore Orioles, strangely enough, in 1901.  Three years later they moved to New York and became the New York Highlanders and only became the Yankees in 1913.  William Devery and Frank Farrell bought the team in 1903 when it was moved to New York.

William Devery

Ruppert

  Jacob Ruppert bought the team jointly with a partner in 1915 and bought the partner out in 1922. Ruppert owned a brewery and served in the US congress as a Democrat.  He was the one who introduced numbers on player's uniforms, which caught on league-wide. 

 Ruppert died in 1939 and his ownership of the team was purchased from his estate by a trio of investors, Dan Topping, Larry MacPhail, and Del Webb. 

Del Webb

McPhail was bought out 2 years later but Dan Topping and Del Webb owned the Yankees up until it was sold to CBS, the television network.   Del Webb was a real estate developer from California who is best known for building the retirement communities in Sun City, AZ and Huntley, IL.    Dan Topping

Casey Stengel (L) and Dan Topping (center)

was an heir to the Reid tinplate fortune.  Between 1945 and 1964 the Yankees had some of their most successful years as a baseball team.  At the end of the 1964 season the team was sold to the Columbia Broadcasting System or CBS.

CBS only owned the team for a few years, during which the team did not do so well, and sold it to an investor group headed by George Steinbrenner in 1973. 

Steinbrenner

Eventually Steinbrenner owned about 70% of the team.  Steinbrenner made his money in Great Lakes shipping.  A mercurial but great owner, he restored the Yankees to its dominant position in baseball.  His sons, Hal and Hank Steinbrenner now hold controlling interest in the team. 

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The Boston Red Sox were founded in 1901 as the Boston Americans and one of the eight charter American League teams along with the Yankees above.  They didn't get the name Red Sox until 1908 and did not play in Fenway Park until 1912.

Quinn

   Their ownership changed hands seven times before Bob Quinn bought the team in 1923.  After an especially crappy season in 1932, Quinn sold the franchise to Tom Yawkey.  He also was part owner of the Boston Braves after he sold the Red Sox.  The Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves prior to moving to Atlanta and becoming the Atlanta Braves. 

Yawkey and his first wife

Tom Yawkey and his widow Jean Yawkey owned the Boston Red Sox from 1933 to 1992.  Tom Yawkey was the grandson of the timber and iron magnate William Clyman Yawkey.  He inherited a fortune at age 30 and bought the woeful team the Boston Red Sox.  While suffering the Bambino curse, they went to World Series seven times and lost each time.    After Jean Yawkey died in 1992, the team passed into ownership of JRY Trust, a group of investors.

  These in turn sold the team in 2001 to New England Sports Ventures/ Fenway Sports group, who are the present owners of the team.    Strangely enough, this last investor group also owns the Liverpool Football Club in the UK.
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The Chicago White Sox started out as the Sioux City Cornhuskers in 1894, a minor league team in the Western League. Charles Comiskey, once a major league star with the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s and manager of the Cincinnati Reds, bought the team the next year and moved it to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Comiskey

  When the Western League reorganized as the American League in 1900, still a minor league team under the aegis of the National League, Comiskey moved the team to the near south side of Chicago and renamed it the Chicago White Stockings, which was a name abandoned by the Chicago Cubs.   The White Sox was the inevitable shortening of the name.    Under Comiskey a number of players were implicated in a scandal known as the "Black Sox scandal" in which a group of players conspired to lose the world series in 1919 in collusion with gambling interests.

Landis

  Although they were acquitted in a court of law after their confessions mysteriously disappeared, baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis saw to it that they were all banned from baseball for life.

Comiskey died in 1931 and ownership passed to his son J. Louis Comiskey.  When the son died in 1939, his widow Grace Comiskey took ownership and when she died in 1956, J.Louis's and Grace's daughter, Dorothy Comiskey Rigney took over.  She sold it after just a couple of years to Bill Veeck. 

Veeck

   Bill Veeck was an innovator who introduced the exploding scoreboard, shooting off fireworks when the White Sox hit a home run, and including the player's surname on the back of his uniform.  For health reasons Bill Veeck sold the White Sox to Arthur and John Allyn (who bought out Arthur's portion in 1969)  who owned the team until 1975.  Bill Veeck bought the team back from them in 1975 and owned it until 1981 when he sold it to current owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. 

Reinsdorf

Reinsdorf, who made his fortune in real estate, also owns the Chicago Bulls.  Einhorn was involved in college sports broadcasting and started a sports network.



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The Cleveland Indians started out as the Grand Rapids Rustlers in the Western League in 1894-1899.  They were briefly the Cleveland Lake Shorers and became the Cleveland Bluebirds when they became part of the newly configured American League.  They subsequently became the Cleveland Broncos and the Cleveland Naps before they settled on the Cleveland Indians in 1915.  

Somers

Charles Somers, a Cleveland businessman in the coal industry was a major player in the formation of the American League as well as just in Cleveland. Somers also was the principal owner of the Boston White Sox.   Going bankrupt in 1916, he sold the Cleveland Indians to Jim Dunn and a syndicate of investors. 

Dunn

Dunn died in 1922 and his widow sold the team to Cleveland industrialist Alva Bradley in 1927.  In 1946 he sold the team to Bill Veeck.  



As with his later tenure with the White Sox described above, he was not above trying various tricks such as creating a movable outfield fence so as to favor or not favor a visiting team, until the American League made a rule against it.  

Veeck

Veeck was also the first American League owner to break the color barrier by signing its first Black player, Larry Doby.

Larry Doby

Veeck sold it to Ryan in 1949.  Ryan sold it to Wilson in 1953.  Wilson sold it to Daley in 1956. Daley sold it to Paul in 1963.  Paul sold it to Stouffer the frozen food king in 1967.  Stouffer sold it to Mileti in 1972.  Mileti sold it to Bonda in 1977.  Bonda sold it the next year to O'Neill in 1978.  O'Neill died in 1983 and his estate sold it to Jacobs in 1986.  Jacobs kept it for 14 years.  Then he sold it to current owner Larry Dolan in 2000.  
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The Detroit Tigers were started in 1894 as part of the Western League. In 1900 it became a charter member of the American league.  Originally owned by George Vanderbeck, it was sold to Samuel F. Angus in 1902.  Angus led a syndicate and was the owner of the Michigan Electric Railway.  Angus tried to sell it to lumber magnate William Clyman Yawkey but he died before it went through, so he ended up selling it to his son Bill Yawkey.  (Later his son would buy the Boston Red Sox).

Frank Navin

In 1908 the major ownership and control of the team passed to former bookkeeper and accountant Frank Navin, who owned the franchise for 28 years, until 1935.  When Navin died, Walter Briggs, an auto parts manufacturer, became the principal owner, although during the Navin years he had owned a 25% share of the franchise. After Briggs died in 1952, his son inherited the team but was forced to sell it in 1956. 

Fetzer

Fred Knorr and John Fetzer let a syndicate to buy the team that year, but Knorr was killed in a auto accident in 1960 leaving Fetzer as owner. Fetzer was a radio and television executive who was a pioneer in radio and TV broadcasting. 

Monaghan

In 1983 he sold the team to Tom Monaghan, an entrepreneur who started Domino's Pizza.  in 1983 he sold the Tigers to the current owner, Mike Ilitch, founder of Little Caesar's Pizza.

Ilitch

  He also owns the Hockey Team the Detroit Red Wings.  In essence you would have to say for the last 30 years and for the foreseeable future, the Detroit team has been a pizza franchise.




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The Baltimore Orioles started out as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901 and in 1903, the St. Louis Browns for its first 50 years or so.

St. Louis Browns

  It was not until 1954 that the Baltimore Orioles, nee Milwaukee brewers became the Baltimore Orioles.  Meanwhile the original Baltimore Orioles have long been the New York Yankees.   Robert Hedges bought the Browns in 1902 and sold it in 1915.  The "Browns" was a name that the St. Louis Cardinals had abandoned, so in a sense the Cardinals were the original Browns. When Phil de Catesby Ball bought the team in 1915, he had just gone down as the owner of the St. Louis terriers in the Federal League, which had just dissolved. 

Ball died in 1933 and his estate sold the team to Donald Lee Barnes in 1936.  Barnes owned it until 1944 when it was sold to Richard Muckerman.   Richard Muckerman sold it to Bill DeWitt in 1948.

   DeWitt was for years before the general manager of the Browns and a minority owner.  However as owner after the end of the war the Browns were a disappointment so he sold the team to Bill Veeck in 1952.   The DeWitt family however has played a prominent part in St. Louis Baseball since then however, as his son and grandson are current owners and president respectively of the Cards.

   Bill Veeck, although lacking one leg, really got around.  He was in Cleveland, St. Louis, and finally Chicago.  In St. Louis he was in direct competition with the St. Louis Cardinals in every way except on the field.  When the cardinal owner Fred Saigh was convicted of tax evasion, his banishment from baseball was assured, but when Anheuser Busch stepped in to buy the Cardinals to keep it in town, Veeck knew that he could not compete with the resources of that corporation, and decided to sell the Browns to Baltimore investors who, in 1954 renamed the Browns the Baltimore Orioles.

Hoffberger

Jerold Hoffberger and associates bought and moved the team in 1954.  He was the president of National Brewing Company which was based in Baltimore.  The team prospered under their ownership and won the pennant four times and the world series twice.  He sold his brewery to Carling in 1974 and the team to Edward Bennett Williams in 1979. 

Williams

Williams was a very successful Washington attorney whose law firm represented some high profile clients such as John Hinckley, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Frank Costello, Joseph McCarthy, Robert Vesco, and Michael Milken.  He also for a time owned the Washington Redskins.  Williams died in 1988 and his estate sold the team to another attorney, Eli Jacobs, along with Larry Lucchino and Sargent Shriver.  Jacobs went bankrupt in a big way and in 1993, the team was sold at auction to a group of investors for 173 million.  The new owner was the present major owner of the team,

Angelos

Peter Angelos, yet another very well-off Washington attorney who made his money in litigation against the makers of asbestos, fen-phen, and tobacco.  However as a sports team under the Angelos ownership, the O's have pretty much sucked.



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The Oakland Athletics started in Philadelphia as an American League team as the Philadelphia Athletics and then to Kansas City as the Kansas City Athletics. 

Philadelphia Athletics

The club was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 and stayed there until 1955 when they moved to Kansas City, where they did not thrive.  Thirteen years later they moved farther west to Oakland (1968) where they remain today.  They have been a very competitive team as such and have been in the World Series multiple times since moving to Oakland.

Ben Shibe owned the team in Philadelphia for its first 20 years, until his death in 1922. He was a sporting goods manufacturer who invented the stitching machinery that standardized the creation of baseballs.

Ben Shibe

His partner in the ownership of the team was Connie Mack (aka Cornelius MacGillicuddy) who became a towering figure in early baseball who managed the Philadelphia Athletics for half a century.

Connie Mack

  Perhaps being both owner and manager explains his longevity, for who could fire him?  In his 80s before he retired he clearly was losing his edge, calling for players that had left the team years ago and sleeping in the dugout and letting his coaches run things.

Any more such financial arrangements are no longer allowed by Major League Baseball as managers cannot have any financial interest in the clubs they manage. If they did and went off to manage other teams, then it would create a conflict of interest.      His sons Earle and Roy ran things from 1950-1954, but were eventually forced to sell the team, which was not doing well at the time, and hadn't for years.  Arnold Johnson bought the team in 1954 and moved it to Kansas City. 

Johnson died in 1960 and Charley Finley acquired the team.  He also managed for years in all but name. 

Charlie Finley moved the team to Oakland in 1968.  He assembled an impressive lineup of talent in the 1970s that went to the World Series three times and made the playoff five times.  Later on however, with the advent of free agency the bloom was off the rose.  He started to divest himself of players but was blocked by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

  When he went to court, he lost.   Finally in 1980 his wife filed for divorce and because of his financial difficulties with the team and his wife did not want a half interest in the team, he was forced to sell it.  It was purchased by Walter A. Haas, Jr., who had it for the next 15 years.  He was the president and CEO of Levi Strauss, maker of the famous blue jeans and other apparel.  His tenure was marked by three more visits to the World Series.  He died in 1990 and the team was sold to Steve Schott, real estate developer and Ken Hoffmann.   Hoffman owned the team for another 15 years and then sold it to Lewis Wolff of Los Angeles.
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The Minnesota Twins started out as the Washington Senators in 1901 as one of the eight original teams of the American League. 

Before that, the team was part of the Western league, a minor league which was under the control of the National League.  If you go back to 1894 it started as the Kansas City Blues. 
Although they have a reputation as a woeful team when they were the Senators, they actually had a period in the 1920s when they were a good team, winning the World Series in 1924, which is more than you can say for the Chicago Cubs in the last 100 years.
The team was owned by Ban Johnson and Fred Postal from 1901-1903. 

Ban Johnson

Ban Johnson was the founder and first President of the American League.  Thomas C. Noyes was co-owner of the team until 1912 when he died of influenza.  In 1919 presumably his estate sold the team to investors headed by Clark Griffith.  Over the years Griffith acquired a controlling interest in the team and kept it until he died in 1955.

Clark Griffith

  His nephew Calvin Griffith inherited his share of the team and moved the club to Minnesota, where it was renamed the Minnesota Twins. The Twins as a baseball team did better, winning the World Series twice since 1955.  

Calvin was the owner and de facto general manager from 1955 to 1984. Calvin once explained his move to Minnesota, saying what attracted him was the paucity of blacks in the state and saying what he liked about the state were all the "good hard-working white people" there.

Calvin Griffith

   In mid 1980s with the changes in player contracts and free agency he sold his team to Carl Pohlad.  Pohlad a regional banker, seemed to desire the opposite, the moving of the team out of Minnesota or into oblivion. 

Pohlad

He offered to sell the Twins to Major league Baseball as part of contraction plan.  A few years earlier,  in a deal that fell through he tried to sell it investors in North Carolina.  Pohlad died in 2009 and his son now runs the organization. 
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The Milwaukee Brewers started out as an expansion team called the Seattle Pilots in 1969. Although currently a National League team,

they were for most of their existence an American League team, hence their inclusion here. The Pilots went bankrupt and they ended up in Milwaukee the next year.   Four years earlier the NL Milwaukee Braves had forsaken Milwaukee for Atlanta.   They were moved from the American League to the National League in 1997.

The investors from Seattle, Dewey Soriano and William R Daley did not really have enough money to keep the Pilots going and they ended up

Soriano

in bankruptcy court where it was acquired by Bud Selig. He promptly moved them to Milwaukee and named them after the defunct minor league team of the same name that existed until the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves in 1952.   When Bud Selig went from acting baseball

Bud Selig

commissioner to baseball commissioner in 1998, he transferred ownership to his daughter Wendy Selig-Prieb.  She in turn sold the team to Mark Attanasio and Antony Ressler in 2005 both of whom live in Los Angeles.   The reason Mrs. Selig-Prieb gave for selling the team was "to spend more time with my family", whatever that means.

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The Kansas City Royals, along with the Seattle Pilots were the two expansion teams started in 1969.  The Royals had better luck with their chosen venue and have remained in Kansas City and thrived.  It was established by

Ewing Kauffman, founder of Marion Laboratories, a pharmaceutical firm based in Kansas City.  When Kauffman died in 1993.  David Glass, former CEO of Walmart, acquired the team and the team has, under his watch, been pretty woeful.  
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The Texas Rangers started life as the new Washington Senators, an expansion team granted to Washington in 1961 after the old Washington Senators left for Minnesota in 1955. 

The new Washington Senators lasted only another 10 years and went to Arlington, Texas in 1972 where they have remained to this day.

The initial owner of the new Washington Senators was Elwood Quesada

who was a much decorated air force general who married one of the granddaughters of Joseph Pulitzer and sold his interest in the team in 1963 to James M. Johnson and James Lemon, an investment banker.  When Johnson died in 1967 they sold the team to Bob Short. Strangely enough Short was from Minnesota whence the original Senators had gone.

Bob Short and Ted Williams

  However when the team had another bad year in 1971 after its only really good year in 1970, he moved it to Arlington, Texas, which is situated between Dallas and Fort Worth.   In 1974 he sold it to Brad Corbett, who made his fortune making PVC pipe from petroleum.  Corbett was erratic and

Brad Corbett

emotional and was not well liked by his players, fans or management.  He sold the team after five years to Eddie Chiles.  Chiles was a man who made his fortune in oil services, that is the various technical and engineering needs of the oil industry.  In 1989 he sold the team to a group of investors including George W. Bush

. Bush sold his share of the team in 1998 for $15 million.  At that time ownership passed to Tom Hicks, a billionaire who made his money in investment banking in Austin.  In 2010 he sold his interest in the club to an investor group headed by Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenburg.  Nolan Ryan was a

Nolan Ryan

baseball hall of fame pitcher who played between 1966 and 1993 for the NY Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers.  He now serves as CEO of the Texas Rangers.

  Chuck Greenburg chose to step down the following March.  Country and Western singer Charley Pride is also an investor in the group and an avid Texas Rangers booster.


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The Toronto Blue Jays were an expansion team founded in 1977 and owned by Labatt Brewing Company. In 1995 as part of the purchase of

Labatt by Interbrew, the Belgian-Brazilian beer conglomerate became the owner.  Consistent with Interbrew's and successor AB-InBev's lack of interest in owning such sports teams or

perhaps their need to pay off debts incurred by their heavy corporate meals (burp), the Blue Jays were sold to Rogers Communications.
Rogers Communications started in Toronto as the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company

in 1925 when Edward Rogers invented the first vacuum tube which was able to work with household alternating current.  This made home radio feasible and a communications and technology giant grew from that beginning.  Today it is a company which markets cable TV and wireless communications, among other things.  
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The Seattle Mariners were the other American League expansion team founded in 1977. 

Danny Kaye

Its original owners were an investment group including actor and comedian Danny Kaye.  George Argyros, a real estate magnate,  bought the team in 1981 and then sold it to Jeff Smulyan in 1989.  Smulyan is CEO of Emmis Communications which owns a lot of radio

stations in the midwest and formerly some TV stations as well, as well as two radio stations in Hungary and Slovakia.  In 1992 it was sold to a limited partnership headed by Nintendo America, part of the Japanese video game company. 

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The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim started out as the Los Angeles Angels.  They were established in 1961.  In 1964 they became the California Angels. In 1997 they became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 

It was originally owned by Gene Autry a screen actor who was the singing cowboy in movies and TV.  He was also the owner of a number of radio stations.  When he died in 1998, his widow owned the team and but control of the team had already passed to the Walt Disney Company which sold it in 2003 to current owner Arthur Moreno, an executive in a company that produced billboard advertising.