Colonel Jacob Ruppert, Builder of the Yankee Dynasty, Dies

On January 13, 1939, Colonel Jacob Ruppert died at the age of 71 after months of declining health. He had been confined to his Fifth Avenue apartment for much of 1938 with phlebitis and was too ill to attend the World Series that October, listening on the radio as his Yankees completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs for their seventh world championship under his ownership.

Ruppert purchased the Yankees in 1915 with partner Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston for $460,000. At the time, the team was a second-tier franchise sharing the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants. Ruppert transformed the organization through two defining moves: the acquisition of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox in January 1920, and the construction of Yankee Stadium, which opened in the Bronx on April 18, 1923.

The Ruth acquisition gave the Yankees the most marketable athlete in American sports. The new stadium, built for $2.5 million, gave them a permanent home that matched their ambitions. Ruppert also hired Ed Barrow as general manager in 1920, and Barrow assembled the rosters that won consistently through the 1920s, 1930s, and into the early 1940s.

Under Ruppert's ownership, the Yankees won ten American League pennants and seven World Series titles. The 1927 team, widely regarded as one of the greatest in baseball history, was a product of Ruppert's willingness to spend and Barrow's ability to evaluate talent.

Ruppert had earned his military title from service in the New York National Guard. His primary business was the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company, a large New York brewery that funded his baseball expenditures. Four days after his death, Ed Barrow was elected president of the Yankees to succeed him. Ruppert was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 by the Pre-Integration Era Committee.