William Louis Veeck, Jr. ( ,
rhymes with "wreck"; February 9, 1914–January 2, 1986), also known
as "Sport Shirt Bill", was a native of Chicago, Illinois
, and franchise owner and promoter in Major League Baseball. He was
best known for his flamboyant
publicity
stunts, and the innovations he brought to the league during his
ownership of the
Cleveland
Indians,
St.
Louis Browns and
Chicago White
Sox. Veeck was the last owner to purchase a baseball franchise
without an independent fortune, and is responsible for many
significant innovations and contributions to baseball.
In response to his critics, Veeck once said, "All I ever said is
that you can draw more people with a losing team, plus bread and
circuses, than with a losing team and a long, still silence."
Early life
While Veeck was growing up in
Hinsdale, Illinois, his father,
William Veeck, Sr., became president of
the
Chicago Cubs. Veeck Sr. was a local
sports writer who wrote several columns about what he'd do
differently if he ran the Cubs, and the team's owner,
William Wrigley Jr., took him up on it.
Growing up in the business, young Bill Veeck worked as a vendor,
ticket seller and junior groundskeeper.
Veeck attended
Phillips
Academy
in Andover, Massachusetts. In 1933, when his
father died, Veeck left Kenyon College
and eventually became club treasurer for the
Cubs. In 1937 Veeck planted the ivy that is on the
outfield wall at Wrigley
Field
and was responsible for the construction of the
hand-operated center field scoreboard still used.
Milwaukee Brewers
In 1941, Veeck left Chicago and purchased the
American Association
Milwaukee
Brewers, in a partnership with former Cubs star and manager
Charlie Grimm. After winning three
pennants in five years Veeck sold his Milwaukee franchise in 1945
for a $275,000 profit.
According to his autobiography "Veeck - As in Wreck", he claimed to
have installed a screen to make the right field target a little
more difficult for left-handed pull hitters of the opposing team.
The screen was on wheels, so any given day it might be in place or
not, depending on the batting strength of the opposing team. There
was no rule against that activity as such, so he got away with
it... until one day when he took it to an extreme, rolling it out
when the opponents batted, and pulling it back when the Brewers
batted. Veeck reported that the league passed a rule against it the
very next day. However in all likelihood this story was made up by
Veeck. Extensive research by two members of the
Society for American
Baseball Research has revealed no reference to a moveable fence
or any reference to the gear required for a moveable fence to
work.
While a half-owner of the Brewers Veeck served for nearly three
years in the
Marines
during
World War II in an artillery
unit. During this time a recoiling
artillery piece crushed his leg, requiring
amputation first of the foot, and shortly
thereafter of the leg above the knee. Over the course of his life
he had 36 operations on the leg. He had a series of wooden legs
and, as an inveterate smoker, cut holes in them to use as an
ashtray.
Philadelphia Phillies
According to Veeck's memoirs, in 1942, before entering the
military, he acquired backing to purchase the financially strapped
Philadelphia Phillies,
planning to stock the club with stars from the
Negro Leagues. He then claimed that
Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain
Landis, a virulent
racist, vetoed the
sale and arranged for the National League to take over the team.
Although this story has long been part of accepted baseball lore,
in recent years its accuracy has been challenged by some
researchers.
Cleveland Indians
In 1946, Veeck finally became the owner of a major league team, the
Cleveland Indians, using a
debenture-common stock group making remuneration to his partners
non-taxable loan payments instead of taxable income. He immediately
put the team's games on radio, and set about putting his own
indelible stamp on the franchise.
The Indians moved to the cavernous
Cleveland
Municipal Stadium
for good in 1947.
That year he signed
Larry Doby as the
first
African-American player in
the
American League, then followed
that one year later by inking
Satchel
Paige to a contract, making the hurler the oldest rookie in
major league history; there was much speculation at the time about
Paige's true age, with most sources stating that he was 42 when he
joined the Indians. Many sports writers mocked Veeck's decision to
sign Paige. One wrote that if Paige had been white, no one would
have thought to sign him. Veeck countered, "If Satchel had been
white, he would have been in the majors 20 years ago."
Although Veeck's image has long been considered fan-friendly, his
actions during the early part of the 1947 season briefly presented
a different view.
When the city of Cleveland
began renting Cleveland Stadium for midget auto
racing, an activity that often left the field in a shambles, Veeck
hinted that he might consider moving the team to the then-virgin
territory of Los
Angeles
, or back to the team's own outmoded and inadequate
stadium, League
Park
. However, after the two sides discussed the
issue, the matter was settled.
As in
Milwaukee
, Veeck took a whimsical approach to promotions,
hiring rubber-faced Max Patkin, the
"Clown Prince of Baseball", as a coach. Patkin's appearance
in the coaching box delighted fans and infuriated the front office
of the American League.
Although Veeck had become extremely popular, an attempt in 1947 to
trade more popular player-manager
Lou
Boudreau to the St. Louis Browns led to mass protests and
petitions supporting Boudreau.
Veeck, in response, visited every bar in
Cleveland
apologizing for his mistake, and reassuring fans
that the trade would not occur (by Veeck's account, the proposed
deal was already dead).
By 1948, led by Boudreau's .355 batting average, Cleveland won its
first pennant and
World Series since
1920. Famously, the following season Veeck buried the 1948 flag,
once it became obvious the team could not repeat its championship
in 1949. Later that year Veeck's first wife divorced him. Most of
his money was tied up in the Indians, so he was forced to sell the
team to fund the divorce settlement.
St. Louis Browns
After
marrying Mary Frances Ackerman, Veeck bought an 80 percent stake in
the St.
Louis
Browns in 1951. Hoping to force the
St. Louis Cardinals out of town,
Veeck spited Cardinals owner Fred Saigh
by hiring Cardinal greats Rogers
Hornsby and Marty Marion as
managers, and Dizzy Dean as an announcer;
and he decorated their shared home park, Sportsman's
Park
, exclusively with Browns memorabilia.
Ironically the Cardinals had been the Browns' tenants since
1920, even though they had long
since passed the Browns as St. Louis' favorite team.
Some of Veeck's most memorable publicity stunts occurred during his
tenure with the Browns, including the famous appearance on August
19, 1951, by midget
Eddie Gaedel for
which Veeck predicted he'd be most remembered; and shortly
afterwards "Grandstand Manager's Day" - involving Veeck,
Connie Mack,
Bob Fishel, and thousands of regular fans,
directing the entirety of the game via placards: the Browns won,
5-3, snapping a four-game losing streak.
After the 1952 season Veeck suggested that the American League
clubs share radio and television revenue with visiting clubs.
Outvoted, he refused to allow the Browns' opponents to broadcast
games played against his team on the road. The league responded by
eliminating the lucrative Friday night games in St. Louis. A year
later Saigh was convicted of
tax
evasion. Facing certain banishment from baseball, he was forced
to put the Cardinals up for sale. Most of the bids came from
out-of-town interests, and it appeared that Veeck would succeed in
driving the Cardinals out of town.
However Saigh accepted a much lower bid
from Anheuser-Busch
. Veeck quickly realized that the Cardinals
now had more resources than he could possibly hope to match.
Reluctantly, he decided to cede St. Louis to the Cardinals and find
another place to play. As a preliminary step, he sold Sportsman's
Park to the Cardinals. He'd probably have had to sell it in any
event; he couldn't afford to make the repairs necessary to bring
the aging park (it had been built in ) up to code.
At first
Veeck considered moving the Browns back to Milwaukee
(where they had played their inaugural season in
1901). He was denied permission by the other American League
owners. He also wanted to move his club to the lucrative Los
Angeles market, but was denied as well.
He then got in touch
with a group that was looking to bring big-league ball to Baltimore
. However, the owners voted this move down as
well. After the
1953 season, Veeck
agreed in principle to sell half his stock to Baltimore attorney
Clarence Miles, the leader of the
Baltimore group. He would have remained the principal owner, with
approximately a 40 percent interest. Even though league president
Will Harridge told him approval was
certain, only four owners—two short of the necessary six for
passage—supported it.
Realizing that the other owners simply wanted him out of the
picture (indeed, he was facing threats of having his franchise
canceled), Veeck agreed to sell his entire stake to Miles' group,
who then moved the Browns to Baltimore as the
Orioles.
Chicago White Sox
In
1959, Veeck became head of a
group that purchased a controlling interest in the
Chicago White Sox, who went on to win
their first pennant in 40 years, and broke a team attendance record
for home games with 1.4 million.
The next year the team broke the same
record with 1.6 million visitors to Comiskey Park
with the addition of the first "exploding scoreboard" in the major leagues - producing
electrical and sound effects, and
shooting fireworks whenever the White Sox
hit a home run, and also began adding
player's surnames on the back of their uniform, a practice now
standard by 25 of 30 clubs on all jerseys, and by three more clubs
on road jerseys.According to Lee Allen in "The American
League Story" (1961), after the
Yankees
watched the exploding scoreboard a few times,
Clete Boyer, the weak-hitting third baseman, hit
the ball over the outfield fence and
Mickey Mantle and several other Yankee players
came out of the dugout waving
sparklers.
The point was not lost on Veeck.
In
1961, due to poor health, Veeck
sold his share of the team. Soon afterwards former
Detroit Tigers great
Hank Greenberg, his former partner with the
Indians, persuaded him to join his group pursuing an American
League franchise in Los Angeles as a minority partner. However
Los Angeles Dodgers owner
Walter O'Malley was not willing to
compete with a team owned by a master promoter like Veeck, even if
Veeck was only a minority partner. When O'Malley got wind of the
deal he brought it to a halt by invoking his exclusive right to
operate a major league team in Southern California. Rather than
persuade his friend to back out, Greenberg abandoned his bid for
what became the Los Angeles Angels (now the
Los Angeles Angels of
Anaheim).
Veeck wasn't heard from again in baseball circles until
1975, when he returned as the owner of the
White Sox. Veeck's return rankled baseball's owner establishment,
most of the old guard viewing him as a pariah after both exposing
most of his peers in his 1961 book "Veeck As In Wreck" and for
testifying against the
reserve clause
in the
Curt Flood case.
Almost immediately after taking control of the Sox for a second
time Veeck unleashed another
publicity
stunt designed to irritate his fellow owners. He and general
manager
Roland Hemond conducted four
trades in a hotel lobby, in full view of the public. Two weeks
later, however, arbitrator
Peter
Seitz's ruling struck down the
reserve clause and ushered in the era of
free agency. Veeck's power as an owner
began to wane relative to richer owners. Ironically Veeck had been
the only baseball owner to testify in support of
Curt Flood during his famous court case, at which
Flood had attempted to gain free agency after being traded to the
Philadelphia Phillies.
Veeck presented a
Bicentennial-themed "
Spirit of '76" parade on opening
day in
1976, casting himself as the
peg-legged fifer bringing up the rear. In the same year he
reactivated
Minnie Miñoso for
eight at-bats, in order to give Miñoso a claim towards playing in
four decades; he did so again in
1980, to expand the claim to five. He also
had the team play in shorts for one contest.
In an attempt to adapt to free agency he developed a
"rent-a-player" model, centering on the acquisition of other clubs'
stars in their option years. The gambit was moderately successful:
in
1977 the White Sox won 90 games,
and finished third with additions
Oscar
Gamble and
Richie Zisk.
During this last run Veeck decided to have announcer
Harry Caray sing "
Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
during the seventh-inning stretch.
The
1979 season was arguably
Veeck's most colorful and controversial. On April 10 he offered
fans free admission the day after a 10–2 Opening Day shellacking by
the
Toronto Blue Jays.
Then on
July 12, Veeck, with an assist from son Mike and radio host
Steve Dahl, held one of his most infamous
promotion nights, Disco
Demolition Night, which resulted in a riot at Comiskey Park
and a forfeit to the visiting Tigers.
Finding himself no longer able to financially compete in the free
agent era, Veeck sold the White Sox in January
1981.
He retired to his home in St.
Michaels, Maryland
, where he had earlier discovered White Sox star
Harold Baines while Baines was in high
school there.
Veeck, weak from
emphysema and having had
a cancerous lung removed in 1984, died of a
pulmonary embolism at age 71. His health
had begun to fail after decades of smoking 3–4 packs of cigarettes
a day.
He
was elected five years later to the Baseball
Hall of Fame
.
Books by Veeck
Veeck wrote three autobiographical works, each a collaboration with
journalist
Ed Linn:
- Veeck As In Wreck - a
straightforward autobiography
- The Hustler's
Handbook - divulging his experience in operating as an
outsider in major leagues
- Thirty Tons
A Day - chronicling the time he spent running Suffolk Downs
racetrack in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The title refers to the daily quantity of horse excrement that had
to be disposed of.
See also
References
- Veeck - as in Wreck, pg 171, by Bill Veeck with Ed
Linn, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962.
- A Baseball Myth Exploded, David M. Jordan, Larry R.
Gerlach, and John P.Rossi ,
http://www.sabr.org/cmsFiles/Files/Bill_Veeck_and_the_1943_sale_of_the_Phillies.pdf#search=%22veeck%20phillies%22
External links