The New York Highlanders Are Approved for the American League

On March 12, 1903, American League owners officially approved a New York franchise for their circuit. The team, which became known as the New York Highlanders, had relocated from Baltimore, where the club had operated as the Orioles. The move gave the young American League a foothold in the nation's largest city, directly challenging the National League's New York Giants for the attention of Manhattan's baseball fans.

The franchise was led by president Joseph Gordon and managed by Clark Griffith. The Highlanders name carried a double meaning. The team's new ballpark sat on one of the highest points in Manhattan, at 168th Street and Broadway, and the name also echoed the Gordon Highlanders, a well-known British military regiment that shared the owner's surname. The park itself was a hastily constructed all-wood structure that served its purpose without much charm.

The Highlanders played their first game on April 22, 1903, losing to the Washington Senators. The team finished fourth in its inaugural season with a 72-62 record. The early years were uneven, though the 1904 squad came within a game of winning the pennant before Jack Chesbro's famous wild pitch cost them the title on the final day.

The franchise would not find consistent success until after 1913, when it adopted the name Yankees and eventually moved to the Polo Grounds as tenants of the Giants. The dynasty years, fueled by Babe Ruth's arrival in 1920 and the opening of Yankee Stadium in 1923, were still two decades away. But the foundation was laid on this day in 1903, when a relocated Baltimore club gained permission to plant a flag in New York.