The Kansas City A's and the Wrong Half of the Yankees: How the Yankees Controlled Two of the Eight American League Franchises During the 1950s (Hardcover)

~ Jeff Katz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

During the second half of the 1950s, folks derisively referred to the Kansas City A's as a "farm team" of the New York Yankees. Trades between the two--often lopsided--were commonplace, and it seemed every time the Yankees needed that one final piece for yet another pennant run, the A's filled the gap.

While most knew that A's owner Arnold Johnson was somewhat affiliated with Yankee owners Dan Topping and Del Webb through his joint ownership of Yankee Stadium, The Kansas City A's and the Wrong Half of the Yankees digs into the deeper business entanglements among the three. In addition to the questionable trades and his earlier purchase of "The House that Ruth Built," Johnson's purchase of the then-Philadelphia A's shows signs of Yankees clout.

Through periodicals, letters, conversations with contemporary players and executives, and an analysis of player records, author Jeff Katz has compiled a chronological account of how, through the hands of a friend and business partner, the Yankees controlled two of the eight American League teams during the second half of the 1950s.

A publication of Maple Street Press, distributed by Potomac Books, Inc.

About the Author

Jeff Katz is a baseball writer and member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He has written baseball articles for such websites as The Baseball Page and contributed a short story to the baseball compilation Play It Again: Baseball Experts on What Might Have Been, edited by Jim Bresnahan. He lives in Cooperstown, New York.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Pub. by Maple Street Press, Dist. by Potomac Books (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977743659
• ISBN-13: 978-0977743650
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #519,458 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great story, May 10, 2008

By	Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I grew up as a Yankee fan in the 1950s and it was obvious that this was going on. Kansas City never had a good ball club but whenever they got talent they traded the player to the Yankees for very little in return. Sometimes it was just cash. The biggest gain was when KC got Roger Maris from Cleveland and after one strong year with KC he was tradedf to the Yankees where he hit 39 home runs in 1960 and 61 in 1961. The As were essentially a farm system of the Yankees but instead of being sent down to the minors a Yankee who needed seasoning was traded to KC where he could face major leaguers including the Yankees. When the Yankees thought the player was ready they brought him back. Here are some of the Yankees that went back and forth: Norm Siebern, Bob Cerv, Irv Noren Marv Throneberry, Hector Lopez. The Yankees got Bud Daley and Bobby Shantz in addition to Maris from the KC As. Billy Martin was traded to KC but only because the Yankees thought he was a bad influence on Mantle. They didn't plan to ever bring Martin back.

Of course the Commissioner ignored the obvious as he let the iwners do whatever they wanted. I never could understand why Kansas City wuld do this. This book explains it all as the KC owner seemed to share outside business interests with Topping and Webb, the Yankee owners.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Paging an Editor!, October 11, 2007

By	Mcgivern Owen L (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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"The Wrong Half of the Yankees" is about the bizarre relationship between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Athletics in the years 1955-1960. The principal characters are A's owner Arnold Johnson and Yankees co-owners Del Webb and Dan Topping. The 3 had deep interests in the Automatic Canteen Company and Topping/Webb sold Yankee Stadium to Johnson. The Yanks main farm team was in KC. Del and Dan just happened to include in the Stadium deal the sale of the Kansas City ballpark to Johnson as well! Moreover, Del and Dan then strong-armed the American League to rubber stamp Johnson's purchase of the moribund Philadelphia A's and to approve the franchise shift from Philly to KC. This, despite the fact that higher offers were on the table, with at least one from interests that might have kept the A's in Philly. Once Johnson was safely ensconced in KC, the teams engaged in some 20 trades, nearly all favoring the Yankees. The fodder for a fine baseball story is all here but author Katz takes far too pages to tell it. Included in the text are a history of the Philly franchise and infighting twixt various members of the Mack family, who had controlled the A's for decades. The result is an almost deadening load of information which might have been fascinating had it only been served in smaller portions. WHY is one of those works which cry out for that proverbial stern editor with a sharp blue pencil to trim down the text. Not until Chapter 11 does Katz cover the good stuff: those trades. These encompass the period when this reviewer was just a kid- and a Yankee fan. Even a boy could smell a rat at some of these transactions. Most may cavil at the lopsided deal for Roger Maris but this observer recalls the round trip trades for pitcher Ralph Terry. A young RT plainly needed seasoning and wasn't going to get it in the Bronx bull pen, so he was farmed to the A's in 1957 (the Billy Martin trade). In 1959, the by then seasoned Terry was back in pinstripes! Even a 12 year old Yankees fan smelled something fishy. A nice inclusion is the images of 78 trading cards for many players. Included are 4 of Harry "Suitcase" Simpson and the '57 card of pitcher Art Ditmar listed as a Yankee -but plainly in an A's uniform! The back of that card actually acknowledged the misprint The bottom line: Insufficient space is given to the trades, far too much to kvetching about franchise shifts, stadium deals and Mack family squabbling. One suspects that some of the text qualifies as mere filler. A scaled down WHY would be excellent as a feature article in a magazine. As a full length, 200 page book it falls short.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And You Thought the Steinbrenner Yankees Were an Evil Empire?, January 30, 2008

By	BluesDuke "A sacred cow is worth but one thin... (Huntington Beach, California) - See all my reviews

If even half this well-researched, well-written, and well-argued volume is true, then-Commissioner Ford ("It's a league matter") Frick, who seemed to spend more time jerryrigging the obstruction of any attempts to break Babe Ruth's records than he did shepherding baseball, was derelict in his duties as the steward of the game. And, an awful lot of baseball fans---in New York, Philadelphia, and Kansas City alike---were had.

The incestuous relationship between Arnold Johnson and Del Webb should have been one of baseball's most grotesque scandals, enough to make the dubious manner in which the eventual Yankee sale to CBS went down (reference Bill Veeck, "The Hustler's Handbook") resemble a gentleman's agreement. Baseball government's apparent silence/inaction during the height of that relationship (although, to his rare credit, then-Cleveland Indians general manager Frank Lane did harrumph to anyone who'd listen---unlikely, considering Lane's own dubious ways of running the Tribe in those years---that, if he'd known his prime young right fielder Roger Maris would end up a Yankee, he wouldn't have swapped Maris to the A's himself) should be considered at least as much a stain on the great and glorious game as were such affairs as the gambling scandals of the 1910s-1920s, the Pete Rose contretemps, and today's contretemps over actual or alleged performance-enhancing drugs.

Yankee haters won't like this, but the shameful story of the 1950s Yankee administration viz the Kansas City Athletics makes the worst excercises of the Steinbrenner era seem tame aberrations. I'd thought for a long time that a good book needed to be written about that story, and here it is.