While the Triplets were a Yankee farm team, the parent club—featuring such legends as John Malangone, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle—played one exhibition game each year at Johnson Field.
[1] As a result, the baseball club became community owned operating as the farm team for the Kansas City Athletics’s.
[2] Rappaport and Toman led the effort of selling state approved stock certificates (which allowed fans to buy into the team) and made a deal with WNBF-TV to broadcast the games.
[3] Ultimately, ticket sales continued to dwindle, radio rights were not longer being purchased, and Rappaport was putting in thousands of dollars of his own money to keep the team afloat, which was deep into the red.
Not to mention the looming threat of the Johnson Field being torn down to make way for Express Highway 17.