In the American League, there seems to have been an entire lack of any concerted campaign to build up a club in New York which should rival the Giants on an even basis.

When I was thirty and perhaps forty, I did not want a wife. It was too much fun being single.

When I was a boy, I had a baseball team of my own. We played on a vacant lot between Ninetieth and Ninety-second streets. I had a little menagerie of my own, some pigeons, guinea pigs, and so on. On Saturday mornings, I had to take my music lesson. Then the members of my team used to come see my menagerie.

I was always interested in baseball. In fact, in my younger years, I played it in an amateur way. But up to the time when I became identified with the Yankees, I was a strong National League rooter.

It would be impossible for me to say when the idea of becoming an owner first came to me. Probably it was a gradual process. The first time the matter was brought to my attention in a concrete form, however, was when Charles Murphy was selling out his controlling interest in the Chicago Cubs.

The first intimation I had that the Yankees were for sale was through an item to that effect in the newspapers. The idea instantly occurred to me that here was a prospect to become interested in a major-league club at home.