New York Politics
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (right) with Yankee manager Joe Torre
Politics has played a major role in Major League Baseball in New York since its inception. In order to be successful, the team owners needed political influence. This influence gave the early magnates access to inside information that was essential - pending subway and bus routes, and plans for housing and public works. The early owners of the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees generally held political offices themselves and were important figures in political clubs such as Tammany Hall. The first Yankee owners, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery, were both corrupt businessmen who paid Tammany Hall large sums of money to protect their crooked operations.(1) Jacob Ruppert, who purchased the Yankees with a partner in 1915, came from a wealthy and politically connected family. In addition, he had been a four-term congressman for the Upper East Side, representing Tammany.(2) Andrew Freedman, owner of the Giants, was another powerful figure in Tammany Hall. He used his political connections to prevent other baseball teams from purchasing a stadium in the city.(3) Charles Ebbets, President of the Dodgers, was successful in building Ebbets Field in 1913 due to his political connections as well. Both he and his partner, Steve McKeener, were former politicians.(4) By contrast, it was Dodger owner Walter O'Malley's inability to establish the political connections he needed that ultimately prevented him from building a new stadium for the team in the 1950s and drove the Dodgers out of Brooklyn to Los Angeles.(5)
Jacob Ruppert, owner of the Yankees
In the 1960's, the place of politics in baseball began to shift to a focus on the use of public funds to build ballparks. William Shea was a well-connected lawyer, and he had no problem obtaining from Robert Moses what O'Malley had failed to obtain: a stadium for his team, the Mets.(6) After the city spent $24 million to build Shea Stadium, Mayor Lindsay seemed to feel that the city "owed" a similar commitment to the Yankees. A fortune was spent on the Yankee Stadium renovation in the 1970s, at which time the city took over ownership of the Stadium.(7) In the past decade, the influence of politics is still evident in the negotiations over the fate of Yankee Stadium. George Steinbrenner and Mayor Giuliani devised a plan for a new stadium at the West Side Rail Yards. Many city residents were angered at the thought of huge sums of city funds being spent on a baseball stadium. After Randy Levine, Giuliani's Deputy Mayor, left to become president of the Yankees, Mike Lupica, a Daily News columnist and one of the most read sportswriters in town wrote: "It is now completely official that Stenbrenner's private box at the Stadium has become an annex to Giuliani's City Hall…Levine was barred from city dealings with the Yankees or Mets, both of which are looking for hundreds of millions in taxpayer handouts to build new stadiums. Apparently, this meant that Steinbrenner could bounce Giuliani on his knee during Yankee games, but not Levine."(8) The stadium proposal eventually died when Mayor Giuliani became distracted by his U.S. Senate run and his health and marital problems.
Yankee owner George Steinbrenner
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