The New York Yankees began in 1903 as the Highlanders after the Baltimore Orioles franchise was transplanted to Manhattan. They became the Yankees in 1913 and moved into the Polo Grounds as tenants of the Giants before opening Yankee Stadium in 1923. The purchase of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox in December 1919 transformed the sport. Ruth’s home-run hitting, paired with Lou Gehrig’s durability and the “Murderers’ Row” lineup of 1927, created the first true American sporting dynasty and made the Yankees the measuring stick for every franchise that followed.

Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941, Yogi Berra’s championship catching, and Mickey Mantle’s switch-hitting power carried the club through the mid-century. From 1949 through 1953 the Yankees won five consecutive World Series under Casey Stengel, a run unmatched in the live-ball era. Whitey Ford, Elston Howard — the first Black Yankee — and later Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson kept the franchise in October even as the 1960s and 1970s brought ownership drama under George Steinbrenner. The 1977 and 1978 titles, sealed in part by Jackson’s three-homer night in Game 6 of 1977, restored the Bronx as baseball’s center stage.

A long drought ended in the 1990s under Joe Torre. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte — the “Core Four” — won titles in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000, with the 1998 club (114–48, then 11–2 in the postseason) often cited among the greatest teams ever assembled. Rivera’s cutter made him the most dominant closer in history. After 2009, when Hideki Matsui’s World Series MVP punctuated another championship, the Yankees remained annual contenders without always finishing the job, a tension that has defined the 2010s and 2020s.

Twenty-seven World Series championships and 41 American League pennants still dwarf every other franchise. Aaron Judge’s 62-homer season in 2022 and the 2024 pennant, which ended in a World Series loss to the Dodgers, showed that the modern Yankees still orbit October. Monument Park, the pinstripes, and the expectation of a title every autumn remain the franchise’s brand: a century of stars, stadiums, and October baseball that turned a relocated Baltimore club into the most famous team in the sport.