Arnold Johnson's tenure as owner . . . .

[Jason R. Maier]

It's well known that Arnold Johnson was a business associate of Yankees owners Dan Topping & Del Webb (Johnson for a time even owned Yankee Stadium), and it was under Topping's influence that Johnson bought the Kansas City A's.

Of course all the trades between the teams were well known . . . so how was this conflict of interest allowed to happen?

[VIBaseball]

This book puts it simply: "The Yankees were merely doing what Major League Baseball allowed them to do."

http://books.google.com/books?id=BkVjyGpf8GUC&pg=PA29&dq=%22Arnold+Johnson%22+conflict+interest&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22Arnold%20Johnson%22%20conflict%20interest&f=false

This one expands on that idea a bit. The only conflict that existed under MLB's rules was Johnson's ownership of Yankee Stadium, and evn then he unloaded it only when Clark Griffith of the Senators lodged a conflict charge. The matter went before Congress:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8bO1jjnBE-sC&pg=PT80&dq=%22Arnold+Johnson%22+conflict+interest&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22Arnold%20Johnson%22%20conflict%20interest&f=false

Snippets of the Congressional hearings are visible here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=iwWMScENhVAC&q=%22Arnold+Johnson%22+conflict+interest&dq=%22Arnold+Johnson%22+conflict+interest&hl=en