Tom Yawkey

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Tom Yawkey with his wife, Jean, 1938.

New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: cph 3c19405)

Tom Yawkeywas an American professional baseball executive, sportsman, and owner of the American League Boston Red Sox (1933–76)—the last of the patriarchal owners of early baseball.

Austin was taken into the home of his maternal uncle William Yawkey and received a B.S. degree (in mining engineering and chemistry) from Yale University in 1925. After his mother’s death he took his uncle’s name, and at the age of 16 he became heir to his uncle’s fortune. Yawkey had a lifelong passion for baseball, and he bought the Red Sox in 1933. He signed such stars as Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Joe Cronin, Ted Williams, and Carl Yastrzemski. The Red Sox won the American League pennant three times but lost the World Series to the National League St. Louis Cardinals (1946, 1967) and Cincinnati Reds (1975).

Yawkey was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1980.