[1] After graduating from Yale College in 1959, he served two years in the United States Army in intelligence stationed at Fort Holabird in Baltimore, Maryland.
In December, 1987, he completed a $900 million acquisition of Telex Corp., which would be merged with Memorex to form, at the time, the world's second largest manufacturer of computer peripherals.
He also served on the board of directors of Times Mirror Co. Jacobs, along with Larry Lucchino (a holdover from the previous ownership), Sargent Shriver and his eldest son Bobby, announced their purchase of the Baltimore Orioles from the estate of the late Edward Bennett Williams for $70 million on December 5, 1988.
[3] The transaction was unanimously approved by the American League (AL) franchise owners just over four months later on April 18, 1989, two weeks into the new baseball season.
In his 1994 book The Baltimore Orioles: Forty Years of Magic from 33rd Street to Camden Yards, Ted Patterson made the following observation of the new majority owner: Jacobs was a New Yorker with a flat personality who found it awkward being in the public eye.
At an auction held in bankruptcy court in New York on August 2, 1993, the ballclub was sold for $173 million to a group of Baltimore investors led by Peter Angelos.