Tom Yawkey

As the longtime owner of the Boston Red Sox, Tom Yawkey and his storied career are featured in several documentaries about the history of baseball and notable players. Tom Yawkey's love of baseball began when he was a young man. In his infancy, Tom and his mother moved from his birthplace of Detroit, Michigan to New York City following the death of his father. There, they settled with his uncle William "Bill" Yawkey, co-owner of the Detroit Tigers. Throughout his childhood with his uncle, Tom was around baseball and subsequently developed a passion for the sport. Tom's mother died of the Spanish Influenza when he was just 15. His Uncle Bill proceeded to adopt him, but sadly, he also passed just a year later. Tom was left as the inheritor of half his uncle's earnings, which he acquired from lumber, mining, and oil. Additionally, Tom inherited land along the South Carolina coast in Georgetown County, where he had frequently visited as a child and developed an affinity for the outdoors and wildlife. Years later, Tom bought out the remaining shares of the land to become the sole owner of the area. After being raised by a guardian for the remainder of his youth, he attended Yale University, where he received an engineering degree and played for the school's intramural baseball team. In 1933, at the age of 30, Tom Yawkey purchased the Boston Red Sox. Both the team and its home stadium of Fenway Park were in a state of disrepair. However, Tom made strategic investments to turn the team around and restore Fenway Park. Over the course of the next 40 years, the Red Sox would go on to become a source of pride for the city of Boston and the citizens of greater New England. Tom married Jean Yawkey Jean Yawkey in 1944. The two shared a desire to help others, and like Tom, Jean developed an adoration towards baseball. Together, they supported a number of charitable causes in Boston, where their beloved Red Sox played, and in Georgetown County, where the pair spent their winters. Tom designated The Jimmy Fund, a children's cancer research foundation, as the Red Sox's official charity, and he and Jean both served in leadership roles for the foundation's board. Moreover, the couple made a significant contribution towards the creation of Georgetown Memorial Hospital, the rural South Carolina county region's first hospital, and were active in backing the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Many more of the Yawkeys' efforts to contribute to their communities were known only to a few, as they often made donations anonymously. When Tom Yawkey died in 1976, he donated the land he inherited and expanded in South Carolina to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Tom had spent much of his life acquiring surrounding land for the purposes of preservation, and the gift to the state of South Carolina is one of the largest ever made to wildlife conservation in the country. The land is now called the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center and encompasses over 24,000 acres. To care for the land in perpetuity, Tom's will also established the Yawkey Foundation. After Tom's death, his wife Jean took over ownership of the Red Sox. Tom was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980. Jean continued Tom's legacy, not only with the Red Sox, but by founding the Yawkey Foundation II in 1982 to champion additional areas of giving based on the causes that were close to her and Tom's hearts, including health care, education, youth and amateur athletics, arts and culture, conservation and wildlife, and human services. Today, the Yawkey Foundation continues to further perpetuate the philanthropic spirit of both Tom and Jean Yawkey in Eastern Massachusetts and Georgetown County, South Carolina.