Franchise knowledge
New York Yankees
New York American League East
The New York Yankees began in 1903 as the Highlanders, became the Yankees in 1913, and turned a purchased Babe Ruth into the first true American sporting dynasty. Twenty-seven World Series championships and 41 American League pennants still dwarf every other franchise. Monument Park, the pinstripes, and the expectation of a title every autumn remain the brand.
From Lou Gehrig’s durability to Joe DiMaggio’s streak, from Mickey Mantle’s switch-hitting power to Derek Jeter’s Core Four Octobers, Yankees baseball has been stars, stadiums, and October as a civic appointment. Aaron Judge’s modern power peak keeps the franchise orbiting the Fall Classic even when the parade waits.
When you are ready to test what you know, start with the Team Origin quiz or browse the full New York Yankees quiz collection — including Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, and the Mickey Mantle quiz.
- Founded
- 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles
- Home
- New York since 1903
- World Series Titles
- 27 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009
- Former Names
- Baltimore Orioles, New York Highlanders
Through the decades
Franchise Timeline
Scroll the milestones, then tap a year to read the story behind it.
Apr 22, 1903
Highlanders debut in New York
A Baltimore transplant opens in Manhattan — the franchise that will become the Yankees. Trace the founding story in the Team Origin quiz.
Dec 26, 1919
Babe Ruth purchased from Boston
The sale that remade baseball — Ruth’s Yankees myth begins. Covered in the Babe Ruth quiz.
Apr 18, 1923
Yankee Stadium opens
The House That Ruth Built — and a 1923 World Series title in its first year. See the Team Origin quiz.
Oct 8, 1927
Murderers’ Row wins the World Series
Ruth, Gehrig, and the most feared lineup of the era. Dig into Gehrig in the Lou Gehrig quiz.
Jul 17, 1941
DiMaggio’s 56-game streak ends
The record that still stands. Covered in the Joe DiMaggio quiz.
Oct 5, 1953
Fifth straight World Series title
Stengel’s Yankees complete 1949–53 — unmatched in the live-ball era. Berra’s rings are in the Yogi Berra quiz.
Oct 1, 1961
Mantle–Maris World Series champions
The M&M boys deliver another title. Dig into Mantle in the Mickey Mantle quiz.
Oct 21, 1998
1998 World Series champions
114 wins, then October dominance — the Core Four’s signature machine. Relive it in the Derek Jeter quiz.
Nov 4, 2009
2009 World Series champions
Matsui’s Series MVP punctuates the last Yankees title — for now. Covered in the Recent Success quiz.
Oct 4, 2022
Judge hits 62 home runs
The AL single-season record falls — modern Yankees power redefined.
Oct 30, 2024
2024 World Series ends vs. Dodgers
Boone’s club wins 94, takes the East, beats Cleveland, then falls to Los Angeles. Judge hits 58 and wins MVP. See the 2024 Yankees quiz.
Oct 10, 2025
2025 ALDS exit vs. Toronto
Another Judge MVP (53 homers), Fried’s 19–5 season, a Wild Card win over Boston — then the Blue Jays end the run. Test the ledger in the 2025 Yankees quiz.
New York Yankees
Origins
The 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 founding arc lives in the Team Origin quiz.
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. Ruth’s Yankees myth is the Babe Ruth quiz; Gehrig’s Iron Horse career is the Lou Gehrig quiz.
From Hilltop Park to the House That Ruth Built, the origin story is a relocated club that learned how to own October — and made every other franchise measure itself against pinstripes.
New York Yankees
History
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. Dig into those pillars in the Joe DiMaggio quiz, the Yogi Berra quiz, and the Mickey Mantle quiz.
Whitey Ford, Elston Howard — the first Black Yankee — and later Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson (A’s chapter elsewhere) kept the franchise in October even as the 1960s and 1970s brought ownership drama under George Steinbrenner. The 1977 and 1978 titles 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. After 2009, when Hideki Matsui’s World Series MVP punctuated another championship, the Yankees remained annual contenders without always finishing the job. Covered in the Derek Jeter quiz and the Recent Success quiz.
Aaron Boone’s 2023 club won 82, finished fourth, and missed October — Aaron Judge’s 37 homers, Gerrit Cole’s Cy Young. The 2024 team won 94, took the East, beat Cleveland in the ALCS, and fell to the Dodgers in the World Series — Judge’s 58 homers and MVP, Luis Gil’s Rookie of the Year. Boone’s 2025 Yankees won 94, finished second, beat Boston in the Wild Card, and lost to Toronto in the ALDS — Judge’s 53-homer MVP season and Max Fried’s 19–5 / 2.86 the staff peak.
New York Yankees
Championships
The Yankees have won 27 World Series championships and 41 American League pennants — a ledger no other franchise approaches. Highlights across the eras:
- 1923, 1927–28, 1932, 1936–39 — Ruth–Gehrig dynasty (Murderers’ Row and beyond)
- 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949–53 — DiMaggio–Berra–Stengel peak (five straight 1949–53)
- 1956, 1958, 1961–62 — Mantle–Ford titles
- 1977–78 — Steinbrenner-era Bronx Zoo champions
- 1996, 1998–2000, 2009 — Torre / Core Four and the last title
- 2024 — AL pennant; lost World Series to Los Angeles Dodgers
The Core Four years live in the Derek Jeter quiz and the Recent Success quiz. For who managed, who led in homers, and how far recent clubs went, work through the 2023, 2024, and 2025 editions in the full collection.
New York Yankees
Oddities
Yankees lore is Murderers’ Row, Monument Park, and the weight of 27.
- Highlanders to Yankees: A Baltimore transplant that renamed itself into destiny. See the Team Origin quiz.
- Ruth bought: December 1919 — the sale that remade baseball. Covered in the Babe Ruth quiz.
- Murderers’ Row: The 1927 club still defines lineup terror. Dig into Gehrig in the Lou Gehrig quiz.
- 56: DiMaggio’s 1941 hitting streak remains untouched. See the Joe DiMaggio quiz.
- Five straight: 1949–53 under Stengel — unmatched in the live-ball era. Berra’s rings are the Yogi Berra quiz.
- The Mick: Switch-hitting power and tape-measure myth. Covered in the Mickey Mantle quiz.
- Core Four: Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettitte — four titles in five years, then 2009. Relive it in the Derek Jeter quiz.
- Judge’s orbit: 62 in 2022, 58 and a pennant in 2024, 53 and another MVP in 2025 — modern Yankees still measured by October. Test the ledgers in the 2024 and 2025 quizzes.
The roster of memory
Notable Players
Legends, franchise faces, and the names every New York Yankees fan should know.
Babe Ruth
659 HR, 60 in 1927, the 1923 MVP, and four World Series titles
Babe Ruth was the best left-handed pitcher in the American League before he became the greatest hitter who ever lived, and along the way he changed what baseball looked like. When he arrived, a dozen home runs could lead the league. By the time he left, he had hit 714 of them, and the whole game was chasing the long ball.
Lou Gehrig
Two MVPs, the 1934 Triple Crown, six titles, 2,130 straight games, and the first retired number in MLB history
Lou Gehrig showed up. For nearly 14 years he never missed a game: 2,130 in a row, through broken fingers, back spasms, and beanings. As a high schooler he hit a grand slam out of the ballpark now called Wrigley Field. As a Yankee he hit four homers in one afternoon at Shibe Park and drove in 185 runs in a single season, still the American League record. He did most of it batting right behind Babe Ruth, the loudest star in the game, and most of it without saying much at all. Then, at 36, he stood at a microphone at Yankee Stadium and called himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Yogi Berra
358 HR, three MVPs, 18 All-Star selections, and a record 10 World Series titles
Yogi Berra won more World Series rings as a player than anyone in history, ten of them, and he won them as a squat, bad-ball-swinging catcher whom scouts kept mistaking for someone who had wandered into the wrong clubhouse. He also became the most quoted man in baseball, which amused him, because he insisted he hadn’t said half of it.
Mickey Mantle
536 HR, the 1956 Triple Crown, three MVPs, and seven World Series titles
Mickey Mantle hit a baseball as hard and as far as almost anyone who ever lived, from both sides of the plate, on legs that hurt for nearly his entire career. He was the fastest slugger of his day, the only switch-hitter ever to win a Triple Crown, and the center fielder who carried the Yankees dynasty from Joe DiMaggio into the 1960s.
Reggie Jackson
Became Mr. October with three homers in Game 6 of 1977 and won back-to-back titles
In 1976 Reggie Jackson announced that if he ever played in New York, they would name a candy bar after him. Two years later they did, and on the day it was handed out at Yankee Stadium, he homered. That was Reggie: brash, theatrical, and at his very best when the lights were brightest. He hit 563 home runs, won five World Series rings, and struck out more than any hitter who ever lived.
Wade Boggs
Four straight .300 seasons, two Gold Gloves, and the 1996 World Series title
Wade Boggs could put a baseball almost anywhere he wanted, and what he usually wanted was a line drive to left field, off the Green Monster, for a single or a double. Scouts said he was too slow, had no power, and couldn’t field. He answered with five batting titles, seven straight 200-hit seasons, and 3,010 hits, the milestone one coming on a swing that cleared the fence.
Lance Berkman
A deadline deal, an ALDS homer and go-ahead double, and first base in the ALCS
On the night of October 27, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals were one strike from losing the World Series for the second time in two innings. Lance Berkman stepped in with two outs in the 10th, fell behind two strikes, and lined a single into center field to tie Game 6. The next night he was a world champion. It was the loudest hit of a career built on quiet, relentless excellence from both sides of the plate.
Joe DiMaggio
56-game streak; nine titles
Hall of Fame center fielder whose 56-game hitting streak in 1941 remains untouched — elegance and October as a Yankees identity. Covered in the Joe DiMaggio quiz.
Whitey Ford
Chairman of the Board
Hall of Fame left-hander whose October excellence made him the mound face of the mid-century dynasty — Chairman of the Board in pinstripes.
Derek Jeter
Core Four captain; five titles
Hall of Fame shortstop and captain of the Core Four era — 1996 through 2009 titles and the modern face of Yankees October. Dig deeper in the Derek Jeter quiz.
Mariano Rivera
Cutter; Core Four closer
Hall of Fame closer whose cutter made him the most dominant ninth-inning force in history — five titles with the Core Four. Covered in the Recent Success quiz.