These are the 1903 NY Highlanders, a team that would later be called the Yankees. They were not an especially good team, barely cracking the .500 mark, but the three circled men are baseball legends and Hall of Famers.
On the top is John “Happy Jack” Chesbro. He won 21 games that year as the ace of the staff, but it was the following season that got him into the Hall of Fame. He posted an unreal record of 41-12, with 48 complete games. That remains, and probably always will remain, the most games ever won in one season at the modern pitching distance. It may be the most unbreakable single-season record.
Third from the left in the lower row is Clark Griffith. He was then at the tail end of an excellent pitching career, but was in his first year as the team manager. Two years earlier, he had managed the first pennant winner in the history of the American league. That turned out to be his only pennant as a manager, but he would later manage the Washington Senators for many years in the Walter Johnson era. After his playing and managing careers, he had a third baseball life as the team president and owner of the Washington club, where he won three more pennants and a World Series. The Senators’ ballpark was named after him.
Next to Griffith is “Wee” Willie Keeler, the 5’4″ bat-control specialist who coined the phrase “hit ’em where they ain’t.” He had eight consecutive years with 200 or more hits. Through the 1903 season, his first with the Highlanders, his lifetime batting average was .366, which would have been the highest of all time had he retired then. He continued to play when he was no longer effective, and his lifetime mark dropped to a “mere” .341.