Buying the Yankees

Jacob Ruppert, left, in the 1920s with Commissioner Kenesaw Landis, center, and Tillinghast L’Hommedieu

With a little – OK, maybe, a lot – of backroom politicking, American League president Ban Johnson 109 years ago today steers the negotiations to buy the New York Yankees toward Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston.

Within a month, Rupert and Huston formally purchase the team from Bill Devery and Frank Farrell.

The cost: $463,000, which today translates into $14.2 million.

Under Ruppert and Huston, the Yankees slowly work toward becoming the game’s preeminent team, a move that accelerates when Miller Huggins becomes manager in 1918 and then rockets toward stardom in December 1919 with the purchase of Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $100,000.

The New York franchise that Ruppert and Huston purchase more than a century ago for $463,000 now is owned by the Steinbrenner family and is worth, according to Forbes Magazine’s latest calculations, $7.1 billion.

Everyone’s IRA plan should do so well.