New York Yankees



The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the borough of the Bronx, in New York City, New York. The Yankees are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles, moved to New York City in 1903, then becoming known as the New York Highlanders as well as the New York Yankees, and becoming solely known as the "Yankees" in 1913.[3] From 1923 to the present, the Yankees permanent home has been Yankee Stadium. In 2009, they are scheduled to move into a new stadium, also to be called "Yankee Stadium".

The Yankees lead Major League Baseball with 26 World Series championships and 39 American League Pennants. They have more championships than any other North American franchise in professional sports history, passing the 24 Stanley Cup championships by the Montreal Canadiens in 1999

At the end of 1900, Western League president Ban Johnson reorganized the league, adding teams in three Eastern cities, forming the American League. Plans to put a team in New York City were blocked by the National League's New York Giants, who had enough political power to keep the AL out. Instead, a team was put in Baltimore, Maryland, a city which had been abandoned when the NL contracted from 12 to 8 teams in 1900.

The team, known as the Baltimore Orioles, began playing in 1901, which was managed by and owned in part by John McGraw. In the middle of the 1902 season, the Giants, aided and abetted by McGraw, who was feuding with Johnson and who secretly had jumped to the Giants, gained controlling interest of the team and began raiding it for players, until the AL stepped in and took control of the team. In January 1903, a "peace conference" was held between the two leagues to settle disputes and try to coexist. One of the results of the conference was that the NL agreed to let the "junior circuit" establish a franchise in New York. The Orioles' new owners, Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery, found a ballpark location not blocked by the Giants, and Baltimore's team moved to New York.

The most success the Highlanders had was finishing second in 1904, 1906 and 1910; 1904 was the closest they would come to winning the AL pennant. That year, they would lose the deciding game on the last day of the season to the Boston Americans, who would later become the Boston Red Sox. This had much historical significance, as the Highlanders' role in the pennant race caused the Giants to announce that they would not play the World Series against the AL pennant winner. 1904 was the last year no World Series was played until 90 years later in the strike-truncated 1994 season. It would also be the last time Boston would beat New York in a pennant-deciding game for a full century (2004). 1904 was also the year Jack Chesbro set a pitching record which still stands: he won 41 games that season. (Under current playing practices, this is an unbreakable record.

By the mid 1910s, owners Farrell and Devery had become estranged and were both in dire need of money. At the start of 1915, they sold the team to Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Captain Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston. Ruppert inherited a brewery fortune, providing the Yankees with an owner who possessed deep pockets and a willingness to dig into them to produce a winning team. This would lead the team to more success and prestige than Ruppert could ever have envisioned.

The 1927 Yankees lineup was so potent that it become known as "Murderers' Row", and some consider the team to be the best in the history of baseball (though similar claims have been made for other Yankee squads, notably those of 1939, 1961 and 1998).[7] The Yankees won an AL then-record 110 games with only 44 losses, and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series. Ruth's home run total of 60 in 1927 set a single-season home run record that would stand for 34 years. Meanwhile, first baseman Lou Gehrig had his first big season, batting .373 with 47 round-trippers and 175 RBIs, beating Ruth's single-season RBI mark (171 in 1921). In the next three years, the Philadelphia Athletics would take the AL pennant and two world championships.

The Yankees not only made it to the 1996 playoffs, but they went 8-0 on the road. Following a win in the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles (which included an instance of fan interference by young Jeffrey Maier, which was called a home run for the Yankees), the team went to the World Series against the Atlanta Braves. Despite losing the first two games at home by a combined score of 16-1, they won in six games and ended the team's 18-year championship drought. Homegrown shortstop Derek Jeter was named Rookie of the Year, an auspicious start to his career with the Yankees. After their first World Series win since 1978, the Yankees signed lefties David Wells and Mike Stanton to improve the pitching staff. They also allowed closer (and Series MVP) John Wetteland to leave as a free agent. The empty spot was filled with Wetteland's setup man, Mariano Rivera.

In 1997, the team made it to the playoffs again, but lost in the 1997 ALDS to the Cleveland Indians. Watson was fired as GM, and was replaced by Brian Cashman, a former Yankee intern. Cashman made many key acquisitions to improve the team, including third baseman Scott Brosius, second baseman and leadoff man Chuck Knoblauch, outfielder Darryl Strawberry and starting pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.

After the 2003 season, the Yankees added two all-star sluggers, Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez, with Rodriguez moving to third base with Jeter entrenched at shortstop. Throughout 2004, however, the Yankees' weakness was their starting pitching, but despite this, they managed to win over 100 games for the third straight year. In the ALDS, the Yankees once again met and defeated the Twins three games to one. In the ALCS, the Yankees met their rival Boston Red Sox again, and became the first team in professional baseball history, and only the third team in North American pro sports history, to lose a best-of-seven series after taking a 3-0 series lead.

On June 18, 2007 the Yankees broke new ground by bringing the first two professional baseball players from the People's Republic of China to the MLB, and also became the first team in MLB history to sign an advertising deal with a Chinese company.

Although failing to be above .500 going into the All-Star break for the first time since 1995, the Yankees were the hottest team in the majors the second half of the year, and on September 26 they clinched a Wild Card spot in the ALDS. However, although they cut the lead to 1.5 games in late September, they were unable to catch the Red Sox for the AL East title, breaking their streak of nine straight AL East division titles. Highlights of the season included Alex Rodriguez hitting his 500th home run at Yankee Stadium, being the first player to hit his 500th at Yankee Stadium since Mickey Mantle and the youngest player to have ever reached that mark, and winning the MVP. Also, Derek Jeter hit for his 6th consecutive 200-hit season, a feat matched in Yankee history only by Lou Gehrig.

In the 2007 ALDS against the Cleveland Indians, the Yankees lost Game 1 as the Indians pounded 19-game winner Chien-Ming Wang. In Game 2, Andy Pettitte dominated the Indians, until the 8th inning when Joba Chamberlain was bothered by an infestation of mayflies and lost the lead, and the Yankees eventually lost the game in extra innings. In Game 3 the Yankees rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win. However, in Game 4 the Indians won the series by defeating the Yankees, 6-4, with Wang again pitching poorly.

Throughout much of their tenure as the Highlanders, the logo was variations of a stylized N and Y, which lay separately on either side of the jersey's breast. In 1905, the two locked for one season, but not in the way used today. It wasn't until 1909 that the team changed to the familiar interlocking NY (originally designed by Tiffany & Co. in 1877) that would be the team logo long after the team became known as the Yankees, and would continue to be the cap insignia until today. In 1936, the current team logo was adopted, which consists of "Yankees" in red script with a red bat forming the vertical line of the K, an Uncle Sam hat hanging from the barrel. For years, the brim of the hat was a light blue, but it has been since changed to white. This is all inside the circle of a baseball, which the ends of the script blend into.

The interlocking NY has varied greatly, and there are currently three major versions in use. There is the cap insignia, in which the N and Y are of about the same size and unadorned. The logo on the breast of the home jersey appeared there in 1912, and, after disappearing in 1917, returned for good in 1936, although there have been many small but apparent changes through the years. The Y is larger, the letters more blocky, and the curves more exaggerated. The third is the print logo, which is used extensively in marketing and is painted behind home plate at the Stadium. The N is larger and more curved, and the letters have large serifs at the end.

While not exactly a logo, the block letter "NEW YORK" that appears on the gray road uniform has become emblematic. There is also a print version of the full name, which is of a more fanciful script than the name appears in the team logo.

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