It is an exclusive club, the families and corporations that have owned baseball teams in our town. Whenever it is that Steve Cohen reaches a 50.1 percent stake in the Mets, he will be able to author his own tale. For now, here’s a brief ranking of the small group of folks who have kept this a baseball town for well over a century. And counting.
1. Jacob Ruppert (and estate), Yankees, 1915-1935: The Manhattan beer baron bought the struggling club in 1915 alongside partner Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston — clearly the best name in the history of New York owners — and before his estate sold the club in 1945 Ruppert managed to do the impossible — he turned New York from a dominant Giants town to a dominant Yankee town.