Beer Money And Babe Ruth

Why The Yankees Triumphed During Prohibition

One of the best beer-and-baseball stories comes from the dry years of Prohibition, 1920-1933, when the New York Yankees made it to seven World Series and won four.

Their rise began in 1915, when the team was purchased for $1.25 million by Tillinghast Huston and Jacob Ruppert, Jr. The Yankees had never won a pennant until the Colonels, as they were known, got a hold of them. Their masterstroke was to add a Boston Red Sox pitcher to the roster in 1920. That player's name was Babe Ruth.