Tom Yawkey, Wunderkind

Quinn knew the name Yawkey. In the days before the first world war, a William H. Yawkey had, for a time, been part owner of the Detroit Tigers, but Quinn neither knew, nor had he ever heard of Tom Yawkey.

Collins promised to arrange a meeting between the Red Sox president and young Yawkey. The first of a series of conclaves took place a few weeks after the 1932 World Series in New York. Yawkey, his lawyer, Frederick F. DeFore, President Will Harridge of the American League and one or two others were among those present.

The more Quinn investigated the situation, the better he liked the idea of selling his club to Tom Yawkey. In the first place, Yawkey was interested in buying the team in its entirety. He had enough money to go into the proposition by himself and he had no desire to form a syndicate that would involve anyone else.

In the second place, Yawkey was a hopeless baseball fan. He loved the game, and all his life, he had sneaked off to the ball park every time he could. He was very young, very enthusiastic and very wealthy.

How wealthy Tom Yawkey was and is has never been anyone's concern except his own. His fortune has been variously quoted as anywhere between ten and forty million dollars. All that interested Quinn was the fact that he had the cash, wanted the ball club, was willing to pay a good price for it and, having done that, would still have enough left to begin the long job of rebuilding the wreck left by Frazee.

Yawkey was the nephew and adopted son of the William H. Yawkey who had been interested in the Tigers. He was a Yale graduate and, at the time Collins introduced him to Quinn, he was not quite 30 years old. For Quinn's purposes, the setup was perfect.

Yawkey was a close friend and great admirer of Collins, so close and so great that, from the very beginning of the negotiations with Quinn, he insisted that he would not close the deal unless Collins would go in with him as vice-president and general manager of the club. Up to that time, Collins had never considered the idea of leaving Connie Mack, but Yawkey flatly refused to do business unless Eddie would head his organization.

When Collins approached Mack, the old gentleman grinned and said, “You'd better take the job. If you don't, I'll fire you anyhow.”

That was all there was to it. From then on, it was just a matter of ironing out the details. On February 25th, 1933, Quinn threw a party for the Boston newspapermen at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, and the purpose of the party was to introduce the new owner of the Red Sox.

For the franchise otherwise known as the privilege of representing the American League in baseball in Boston, and for the rapidly deteriorating derelict that was Fenway Park at the time, Tom Yawkey turned more than a million dollars over to Bob Quinn and Quinn's associates. On top of that, he asked Quinn to stay with the organization, but, as far as Bob was concerned, enough was enough. Once had had sold the team, he wanted to forget, as rapidly as possible, the fact that he had ever heard of the Boston Red Sox. Furthermore, he felt that he could not give Yawkey any concrete assistance even if he did stay, and he did not want his successor to feel under any obligation to him.

The Copley Plaza introduction took place exactly four days after Yawkey had observed his 30th birthday. Far and away the youngest club owner in the major leagues, Yawkey almost shocked the delighted scribes with his extreme youth. These men, who for years had been suffering chamber-of-horror pangs with both the Red Sox and the Braves, who had also spent one season after another batting their brains out against the roof of the cellar, looked at the kid in front of them and dreamed roseate dreams of Boston pennants to come.

The New York Yankees had bought pennants with little green pieces of paper, the same kind of paper that seemed to be coming out of Yawkey's ears. The twin colonels of the Yanks, Jake Ruppert and T.H. Huston, had dug deeply into their ancient jeans and came up with the most powerful ball club in baseball history. If they could do it, why couldn't Yawkey?

At no time, either at that first meeting or at subsequent public sessions, did Yawkey ever announce in so many words that he intended to buy a pennant for Boston. He simply said, somewhat casually, that he had the money and he was willing to spend it.

Scores of baseball owners down through the years have been willing to spend money to get themselves a pennant winner. Very few have had it to spend. That, of course, had been Quinn's trouble. He had to be cautious about money, because, in the first place, the money was not his, although he had control of it, and, in the second, it did not come cascading through the doors of his office in unlimited rivers.

Quinn had his faith, his hope and his experience, but not enough cash. Yawkey had plenty of faith and hope, no experience whatsoever, and plenty of cash. To make up for his own lack of experience, he had Eddie Collins, who, to this day, has been the central figure of an undercurrent of criticism which, from time to time, has erupted into the open.

But, on that February day in 1933, there was no criticism of anyone, and the only eruption was born of ecstasy. Everything was just ducky around Boston that afternoon. Yawkey was a prince of good fellows. Collins was one of nature's noblemen. Quinn was one of baseball's grand old gentlemen, graciously stepping down to turn over the reins to younger hands.

An angel had come to Boston to put it into baseball's heaven. A black-haired Timon was about to make Boston the baseball Athens of America again.

Good fellowship and excellent liquid refreshment that challenged a law that was virtually defunct by early 1933 blended happily. The future glowed in prospect. Not next year, perhaps not even the year after, but certainly by 1936, a pennant would be flying from a freshly painted flagpole in a new Fenway Park. Newspapermen and fans alike conjured glorious visions of pockets heavy with coin transforming the city from baseball's morgue to baseball's capital. Surely the day would come soon when Yawkey could sit in Quinn's old office – remodelled, of course – and thumb his nose right back at the impudent sign on the other side of Jersey Street. - Al Hirshberg's The Red Sox, The Bean and The Cod.

First In War, First In Peace (Part 2)

Baseball men at that time gathered in large groups twice a year. They met at the World Series in October. They met again at the annual minor and major league meetings every December. Quinn decided to see if he could find a good buyer, a baseball fan and a Midas, at the World Series.

The 1932 World Series opened in New York, where the Yankees and the Chicago Cubs were clashing. As usual, Quinn attended the games, hoping that he would find someone who would steer him in the right direction.

In spite of the fact that Quinn had not broadcast his desire to sell the team, the word had gone around that he would be interested in turning it over to someone else. Even before the World Series, he was approached by a group of Boston business men, who were forming a syndicate. Their proposal had not gone beyond the talking stage, however, and Quinn did not care to consider them seriously until they could prove that they were prepared to lose money over a long period in order to pull the Red Sox out of the mire.

So, when he went to New York, he went with an open mind. He joined happily in the World Series ceremonies, met his legion of old friends and associates and waited for an opportunity to do something more concrete than simply think about selling his ball club.

What Quinn really wanted was for someone else to bring up the subject. Sometime during the series, he knew that one of his friends would ask him about it, and he was in no hurry to open the subject himself. He knew, too, that if no one approached him then someone would sooner or later. With the selling seed planted, the buying bloom would flower eventually.

During the course of his peregrinations around the World Series headquarters in New York, Quinn bumped into a good many people he knew. Few of them were prospective buyers, but almost any of them might know of someone else who was.

One night, he ran into Eddie Collins, who, in his day, had been one of the greatest second basemen of all time. Collins, after more than two decade in the majors, had reached the end of his playing career. The best years of his baseball life had been spent with the Philadelphia Athletics, where he had become an integral part of Connie Mack's million-dollar infield, consisted of Stuffy McInnis, himself, Jack Berry and Frank (Home Run) Baker. When Mack broke up that team, Collins was sent to the Chicago White Sox, where Eddie had been part of a magnificent ball club which was smashed by the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when eight members of the team helped to throw the World Series of that year to the Cincinnati Reds.

Collins was one of the few regulars on the club whose hands had remained clean. He had nothing to do with the scandal and, after finishing his playing career in Chicago, he had returned to Philadelphia as a coach under his old boss, Mack.

In 1932, Collins was, presumably, being groomed by the old gentleman to take over the managerial reins of the Athletics when, as and if Mack decided to relinquish them. Collins was happy in Philadelphia, and, to all intents and purposes, had no intention of leaving there.

When he and Quinn met, they shook hands and then Collins asked, “Say, Bob, is it true that you want to sell the Red Sox?”

“It all depends,” replied Quinn.

“On what?”

“On my finding the right party.”

“I see. Well I know a young fellow who might be interested.”

“Think so?” asked Quinn.

“I don't know. Would you like to meet him?”

“What's his name?”

“Tom Yawkey,” Collins answered.

First In War, First In Peace (Part 1)

Taken from Al Hirshberg's The Red Sox, The Bean and The Cod:

Mr. J. A. Robert Quinn was disconsolate. As he looked out of the windows of his Fenway Park office in Boston on a late August afternoon in 1932, an advertising sign across the street calmly thumbed it's nose at him. In bold letters, it leeringly proclaimed its product as the “World's Champion.”

That was the only champion Bob Quinn had seen around Fenway Park during the entire ten years that he had been there. From the very moment that his syndicate had purchased the Boston Red Sox franchise from Harry Frazee, Quinn's life had been blighted by the most chronic headache in baseball.

The baseball club which Frazee had turned over to him in 1923 was a shell so hollow that it echoed nothing but memories – memories of great days in Boston baseball history, days when the Red Sox were always either a pennant winner or a pennant contender, days when every position was held down by a star, days when championships were taken as a matter of course and the cellar was for the likes of the gremlins and Washington, by tradition first in war, first in peace and last in the American League.

This was the club that Frazee had wrecked so thoroughly that there was nothing left but the privilege of representing Boston in the American League, plus a ball park which was groaning and grunting under the weight of the years and, thread by thread, was falling apart at the seams.

Quinn, heading a syndicate from Columbus, Ohio, had come in with fresh money and high hopes for the resurrection of a great tradition. In ten years he had watched the money go stale and the tradition transformed into a legend.

The failure was not the fault of Bob Quinn. He went to Boston from the St. Louis Browns, where, as general manager, he had come within a half game of giving St. Louis its first modern American League pennant in 1922. He had faith in himself, a vast fund of baseball experience and an intense desire to bring back to Boston the glories of the past, glories which, perhaps, would never have slipped away, except for Frazee's willingness to present the New York Yankees with the great stars of the early 'twenties, including a powerful young man with the face of a pixie and the legs of a ballet dancer whose name was Babe Ruth.

All of Quinn's hopes, all of Quinn's faith and all of Quinn's experience could not put the Red Sox together again. As he stared moodily at the mocking sign across Jersey Street on that summer afternoon in 1932, his mind flashed back through the years that he had handled the fortunes of the team. Dolefully, he took a look at the record: eighth in 1923; seventh in 1924; eighth in 1925; eighth in 1926; eighth in 1927; eighth in 1928; eighth in 1929; eighth in 1930; sixth in 1931; deep in the cellar and certain to be eighth again in 1932.

It was enough to try the soul of any man. Bob Quinn did not want to quit. He still had his hope and his faith and he had added ten years of experience, tough, hopeless, heart-breaking years, years of frustration and aggravation and disappointment. Despite it all, Quinn was still fighting, and, despite it all, he would be fighting yet, except for one important factor.

The bulk of the money sunk into the fading Red Sox belonged to Palmer Winslow, a Columbus millionaire. In 1932, Winslow died. Quinn, with a ball club which had spent most of its time at the very bottom of the league and which was losing money every year, found himself working with $425,000 belonging to Winslow's widow.

As long as Winslow lived, Quinn knew that no one but Winslow would be badly hurt if anything happened to that $425,000. Winslow knew how risky a baseball franchise was. He knew Quinn's problems and was sympathetic to them. He was willing to take the chance of losing the money, for he had gone into the deal with his eyes open and was a sound enough business man to realize that the possibilities could be disastrous.

But Mrs. Winslow was a widow and dependent upon the Red Sox for a certain amount of financial assistance. Quinn was willing to risk Winslow's money. He was unwilling to take the chance of losing a fortune for Mrs. Winslow.

Unless he could get fresh money in heavy chunks, for the operation of a big league baseball club requires huge globs of cash, he knew he would have to sell the Red Sox.

He was tired of raising money and then, because of one bad break after another, watching it melt away. He was tired of batting his graying head against the stone wall of potential success, a wall which opened holes for some club-owners and capriciously hid them from others. He was tired of planning big days and then watching hopelessly as even the weather man failed him. It rained on so many holidays and Saturday afternoons when the Red Sox were in Boston that the term, “Quinn weather” became a by-word among Hub baseball fans.

Most of all, he wanted to present a check for $425,000 to Mrs. Winslow and say, in effect, “Madame, take this and put it into a safe place.” That desire become almost a phobia with him.

So, as he sat behind his desk on an off-day at the ball park, he made up his mind to get rid of the franchise – to sell it to the highest bidder, provided it would be for the interests of the ball club.

He knew that he would have no trouble finding a buyer. Boston was a magnificent baseball city. The fans were always starry-eyed and faithful. Year after year, they had lived in the same fool's paradise as had Quinn. They were always ready to flock to the ball park in the early stages of the season, always hopeful that, perhaps, this would be the year when the team might, somehow, pull itself up by the boot-straps.

The very name, “Red Sox”, was old and hallowed and saturated with an ivy of its own. In 1932, there were countless thousands of fans who could remember the halcyon days between 1910 and 1918 when the Red Sox were always either at or near the top of the American League, and who proudly pointed to the undeniable fact that never had a Red Sox team lost a World Series.

A new generation of potential fans was growing up, however, and that generation knew only of the greatness of the New York Yankees, the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics. It was resigned to failure in Boston, for, in ten years, the best the team had done was sixth place in 1931.

Boston, the cradle of liberty, had become the graveyard of baseball. Its head was hanging, bloody, almost bowed. The happy days when fans were booming out the strains of “Tessie”, the Boston victory song, were gone.

Quinn had not been able to bring them back, but, when he decided to sell the team, he made up his mind to sell it to someone who could. If he could only find a buyer, not with a limited supply of money, who had to scrape the price of the team together and then hope for the best, but who was wealthy enough to spend huge sums to rebuild the team, he would be satisfied.

He was looking for a Croesus to whom money meant nothing. He was seeking a hopelessly ardent baseball fan who cared everything for a winner, and nothing for the cost. In the worst depression year in American history, he wanted to find a multi-millionaire, and, in 1932, America was not exactly crawling with multi-millionaires.

Quinn told only his closet associates that the Red Sox were on the market. It would never do to let his decision come out until he had a proper buyer. He did not want hare-brained characters to swamp him with phony offers backed by half-empty pockets and inspired by the erroneous impression that all major league baseball teams make money.

Selling a ball club was not like selling a pair of shoes. You did not buy space in metropolitan newspapers and proclaim to the world at large that you had one (1) major league baseball franchise and one (1) down-at-the-heels ball park for sale. Instead, you whispered to friends that you might consider an offer, although you were by no means sure that anything would develop from one.

Bob Quinn did not let his desire to sell the Red Sox color the good judgment that nature had given him. He let a few people know what was on his mind, and then waited for a chance to go more deeply into the problem.

The Early Years of the Boston Red Sox

As told by fenwayfanatics.com.

Up until 1901, the only game in town was the the National League, which had started in 1876. The league consisted of twelve teams, and Boston was home to the Beaneaters. Then Ban Johnson, the owner of a small but successful minor league system from the Midwest, decided to directly compete with the National League and turned his circuit into a major league unit. Original plans did not call for a franchise in Boston, but to the good fortune of generations of New Englanders, he moved a team originally meant to play in Buffalo, NY to Boston...

1901 - 1911: Humble Beginnings

Founded in 1901, the franchise was not known originally as the Red Sox; in fact, research from well-known author Bill Nowlin shows that several names were used by local sportswriters to identify the team. None of these names included the Boston Pilgrims, which has often been cited erroneously as the team's name before owner John Taylor christened the popular moniker known and loved today in December of 1907.

In 1903, in just its third season of existence, Boston not only won its first pennant, but challenged and defeated the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the inaugural World Series. One year later, Boston finished the season as the 1904 American League champions, but the 1904 National League champion New York Giants refused to play against an "inferior" league, so Boston had no opportunity to defend its world championship title.

During these seasons, the team took residence at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, a ballpark hastily built not long after the city was awarded the franchise. Besides being the predecessor to Fenway Park, it witnessed the first perfect game thrown in the American League in 1904 by none other than the legendary Cy Young.

1912 - 1919: Baseball Dynasty

With the opening of Fenway Park in 1912 came a string of success in terms of championship teams in Boston. With star players like Smoky Joe Wood, Dutch Leonard, Tris Speaker, Duffy Lewis, Harry Hooper, and the infamous Babe Ruth, the team won World Series titles in 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. Oddly enough, for financial reasons, the franchise played its home games during the 1915 and 1916 World Series at Braves Field, this after the Braves used Fenway for its home field in the 1914 World Series since Braves Field was undergoing renovations at the time.

Probably the biggest star to come out of that span was Ruth, who began his career with Boston as a pitcher before ownership realized that it was his hitting prowess that brought the crowds to the park. Unfortunately, despite Ruth's popularity and box office appeal, the relationship between the club and Ruth went sour, so much that Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold the disgruntled player to New York for $125,000 and a loan of $300,000, secured by Fenway Park itself.

1920 - 1932: Boston Hits The Skids

With the departure of Ruth after the 1919 season, the Red Sox went to a tailspin for several seasons as, year after year, ownership with little eye for talent would pay huge sums to hopefuls that would not only disappoint but continue to lead the team to sub-.500 records. The low point probably came in 1932 when Boston could manage just 43 wins against 111 losses. In contrast, the New York Yankees, Ruth's new team, found a formula for success, winning seven pennants and four World Series titles during his tenure with the club, the last coming in 1932 with a team that won 107 games.

But maybe things can change...