Arnold Johnson

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Arnold Johnson was also the name of an actor.

Arnold M. Johnson (1906 - 1960) was an American industrialist, businessman and sportsman, who purchased the storied but financially unsound Philadelphia Athletics baseball club and moved it to Kansas City, Missouri, in the autumn of 1954.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, and graduate of the University of Chicago, Johnson enjoyed a highly successful business career. He was a stockbroker and banker, served on the board of directors of a number of corporations, and invested in the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League.

In December 1953, Johnson entered baseball through a real estate transaction by purchasing the top two playing venues of the perennial champion New York Yankees - Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and Blues Stadium in Kansas City, home of the Yanks' top farm club, the Kansas City Blues. Concurrently, struggling major league baseball teams - especially "second" teams in two-team cities - were abandoning their old homes for greener pastures elsewhere. Spurred by Kansas City officials, Johnson decided to bring a major league team to town.

Ironically, for many years the Athletics of Connie Mack were Philadelphia's more popular club. But the team's chronic failures on the field since the early 1930s and its lack of resources undermined it. In the mid-1940s two fatal blows were struck. First, the stepchild Phillies of the National League were bought by the wealthy Robert R.M. Carpenter, a DuPont heir. Carpenter then proceeded to spend lavishly on young players, resulting in a Phillies' NL pennant in 1950; they began to outdraw the Athletics and could now claim to be the city's favorite baseball team. Second, a power struggle between two branches of the Mack family - essentially, Roy and Earle, Mack's two sons from his first marriage, were ranged against Connie's second wife and their son from that union, Connie Jr. - resulted in a dangerous depletion of capital. In order to maintain control of the A's, the elder Mack and his oldest sons mortgaged Shibe Park and deprived themselves of concessions revenue. Connie Sr., 87, retired as manager in the autumn of 1950 under pressure from Roy and Earle. He remained team president, but when he disappeared from the scene, a lot of goodwill disappeared with him. By 1954, the last-place Athletics were gasping.

Wooing Roy and Earle Mack, who represented their father as majority owners, Johnson finally convinced them to sell their shares for $3.5 million, then withstood a furious, eleventh-hour "save the A's" campaign from Philadelphia officials that nearly swayed Connie Sr.'s support of the deal. When the 91-year-old patriarch approved the transaction, the A's moved to Kansas City. Amid concerns of a conflict of interest, Johnson sold Yankee Stadium back to the Yankees as a condition of allowing the A's purchase. City officials bought Blues Stadium from Johnson and renamed it Municipal Stadium, heavily renovating it to bring it to major league standards.

Johnson showed his true colors in the lease he signed with the city. It contained a three-year escape clause allowing the A's to break the lease if attendance dropped below one million. Rumors swirled that Johnson intended to keep the team in Kansas City for only a few years before moving it to Los Angeles. If that was the case, it became moot when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved there for the 1958 season.

The team drew 1,393,054 fans in its first year in Kansas City, 1955--the third-highest figure in baseball (behind only the Yankees and Milwaukee Braves). However, the novelty wore off quickly as loss piled upon loss during the A's 13-year stay in Kansas City. The A's would never even approach their 1955 attendance figures again. Worse, Johnson's former business ties to the Yankees resulted in a series of trades with the Bronx Bombers that helped keep the New York dynasty afloat. Invariably, any good young player was traded to the Yankees for aging veterans and cash. Over the years, Johnson would trade such key players as Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Hector Lopez, Clete Boyer, Art Ditmar and Ralph Terry to the Yankees. In return, he did receive some talented younger players such as Norm Siebern and Jerry Lumpe, and the cash helped the team pay the bills. However, the trades were tipped so heavily in the Yankees' favor that many fans and reporters thought that the A's operated as a Yankee farm team at the major league level.

The Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick, never stepped in, but fate took a hand. In March 1960, Johnson was returning from watching his Athletics in spring training when he was fatally stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 53. Later that season, his estate would sell its controlling interest in the team to Charles O. Finley, who would eventually move the A's to Oakland and assemble a dynasty there in the early 1970s.