Bill Veeck (66 page)

26
. AP,
Baltimore Sun
, March 10, 1942, 15.

27
.
Reading
(PA)
Eagle
, February 28, 1943, 14.

28
.
Look
, September 7, 1943.

29
. Grimm and Prell,
Jolly Cholly's Story
, 143.

30
.
Milwaukee Journal
, November 28, 1943, 46.

31
. Grimm and Prell,
Jolly Cholly's Story
, 144–45.

32
.
Reading
(PA)
Eagle
, February 28, 1943, 14.

33
.
Chicago Tribune
, June 3, 1943, 25.

34
.
Flood v. Kuhn
, Second Circuit Briefs and Records. Law Library, Library of Congress, Veeck testimony, June 10, 1970, 2035–7.

1
.
Chicago Defender
, September 17, 1932.

2
.
New York
Amsterdam News
, October 27, 1934, 10. “House of David” was a nickname given to several barnstorming or non-league traveling teams whose distinguishing characteristic was that all the players wore long beards. Franklin Huddle (
American Speech
, April 1943) wrote: “These are, quite often, pretty disreputable outfits, since they are likely to be made up of men who have been thrown out of organized baseball. Many of these gentry grow beards and call themselves (in imitation of the real thing) House of David teams…. The beards serve the twin purpose of advertising and disguise.” The teams were also known as the “Bearded Wonders.” “No one seemed to mind that King Ben [Purnell] recruited his wig and false-beard-wearing talent from that category of player which … was on extended leave from the major leagues” (Arthur Orrmont,
Love Cults and Faith Healers
[New York: Ballantine, 1961], 105). Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched for a House of David team during the Great Depression; he was the only player granted permission not to wear a beard. A character (Lionel) in William Brashler's 1973 novel
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings
told Bingo: “You got to watch out for the other barnstormers like Max Helverton's Hooley Speedballers and them white teams from Michigan, them House of David boys with the beards.” The term is derived from a religious organization founded in 1903 and dedicated to reassembling the twelve tribes of Israel.

3
.
Chicago Defender
, April, 16, 1938.

4
. Ibid., June 17, 1939.

5
. Reference to the two games in August appear in the
Milwaukee Journal
, August 18, 1941, and the
Saturday Evening Post
, July 27, 1940. Also see
Chicago Defender
, June 20, 1942.

6
.
Time
, June 3, 1940. The final paragraph of the article is worth noting for several reasons, not least of which is that Pegler was one of the nation's leading conservative voices in 1940: “Columnists Westbrook Pegler, the late Heywood Broun (both onetime baseball writers) and many a sportswriter have protested against color discrimination in big-league baseball. The owners and managers say that their Southern players and their visits to Southern training camps would make trouble if Negroes were on the team. But many a shepherd of a limping major club has made no secret of his yearning to trade more than a couple of buttsprung outfielders for colored players of the calibre of Satchelfoots Paige.”

7
.
Milwaukee Journal
, August 18, 1941, 13.

8
.
Palm Beach Post
, August 7, 1942.

9
. Charlie Grimm and Ed Prell,
Jolly Cholly's Story: Grimm's Baseball Tales
(Notre Dame, IN: Diamond Communications, 1983), 153;
Sport Life
, July 1949, 14.

10
.
Milwaukee Journal
, October 8, 1942, 36.

11
. Transcript of the Special Meeting of the Board of Directors of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, January 17, 1942, 10:45, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York.

12
.
Milwaukee Journal
, October 18, 1943, 3.

13
.
Baltimore Afro-American
, May 25, 1940.

14
.
Baltimore Afro-American
, August 5, 1941.

15
.
Chicago Defender
, May 16, 1942.

16
. A detailed account of this game is in the opening chapter to Tim Gay's
Satch, Dizzy and Rapid Robert
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).

17
.
Chicago Tribune
, May 25, 1942.

18
.
New York Times
, June 5, 1942.

19
.
Chicago Daily News,
June 27, 1942.

20
.
Baltimore Afro-American
, July 11, 1942.

21
.
Chicago Defender
, August 1, 1942.

22
.
New York
Daily News
, quoted in Irwin Silber,
Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), 70–76. In a interview with Rodney in 2009.

23
. AP,
Deseret News
, July 17, 1942;
Los Angeles Times
, July 18, 1942, 13.

24
.
Chicago Defender
, July 25, 1942.

25
. AP,
The Day
, July 30, 1942.

26
.
Chicago Defender
, July 25, 1942.

27
.
Pittsburgh Courier
, July 25, 1942.

28
.
Sporting News
, August 2, 1942, 4.

29
.
Chicago Defender
, August 1, 1942.

30
.
Sporting News
, July 30, 1942, 12.

31
. Roy Campanella,
It's Good to Be Alive
, 97–98.

32
.
Pittsburgh Courier
, February 24, 1962, A30.

33
.
Washington Post
, May 12, 1953.

34
. Thanks to Cubs historian Hartig, here are the other games. On June 21 the Cincinnati Ethiopian Clowns, winners of the annual Denver National Semi-Pro Championship in 1941, played the House of David in the first game of a Wrigley Field doubleheader. The Clowns played the Chicago Brown Bombers in an official Negro Major League game in the nightcap. Besides playing baseball, the Clowns also provided in-game entertainment led by the top comedian
and pitcher Peanuts Nyasses. The Clowns beat the House of David 9–8 but lost to the Brown Bombers 1–0. Then on July 26 a crowd of 20,000 attended Satchel Paige Day at Wrigley to watch the Kansas City Monarchs and Memphis Red Sox split a doubleheader. Memphis won the opener 10–4 and dropped the nightcap 4–2 in seven innings. Paige allowed only five hits to win the second game. Between games, Paige received numerous gifts, including a watch, portable radio, suit of clothing, travel bag, and trophy. On September 6 the Birmingham Black Barons and Kansas City Monarchs triumphed in a four-team doubleheader at Wrigley before 8,000. The Black Barons, who tied the game with a homer in the top of the ninth, beat the Memphis Red Sox 7–4 in ten innings with Ted Radcliffe socking a bases-loaded double. Kansas City beat the Cincinnati Ethiopian Clowns 4–3 in the nightcap. The first game was said to be for the Negro Championship for the South, while the second game was billed as the unofficial World's Negro Championship. The Clowns performed their comedy act between games of the doubleheader.

35
. Interviews with Fred Krehbiel, June 26 and July 6, 2010. According to Kiehbiel, Veeck conferred with his sister on all major decisions.

36
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 6, 1986. Carmichael was interviewed by Jerome Holtzman at the time of Veeck's death. Carmichael was eighty-three, having retired thirteen years earlier. Carmichael later told Holtzman, “I've often wondered what would have happened if he bought the Phillies. But [Veeck] didn't have the money.”

37
.
Washington Post
, February 4, 1960.

38
. It is probable, not provable, that this was a meeting with a certain (if not high) degree of cordiality. Landis was a close friend of Veeck senior's, who had spearheaded the successful drive to make him commissioner. Bill had grown up with Landis often in his father's company. Bill had a natural and easy access to Landis and could see him without an appointment. Veeck's office in Milwaukee featured an oversized portrait of Landis, whom he regarded as the last court of appeal in all baseball matters and a man who had been nothing but loyal to his father, who in turn had been nothing but loyal to Landis. Interview with Fred Krehbiel, June 6, 2010. Krehbiel still has a gift Landis sent for his parents' wedding as one of many hints as to the closeness of the Veecks and Landis.

39
. Banker,
Black Diamonds
, cassette 3, side 2. Although he did not mention the racial aspect of the deal, the day that the league took over the team the following February, Veeck reported that he had $500,000 in backing to buy the club but that he had decided to stay in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Sentinel
, February 10, 1943, 11.

40
. Transcript of the Meeting of the Board of Directors of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, November 4, 1942; 10:45 a.m., 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, 90–91. On November 4, 1942, a meeting was held at which the sale of the team was again at issue. The team had not yet actually been sold, and Nugent had apparently not been told what had happened—as far as he knew, Veeck was a no-show and he had not a clue as to Veeck's plan. “I had Bill Veeck, young Bill Veeck, stop in and ask me about the ball club. He went back to Milwaukee. He said he had gotten his idea from some Philadelphia newspaper man, who started a rumor, and it just gave him the idea that he would come over and inquire about it. He said that he had some Milwaukee capital that was interested, and so forth, and that he would let me know in a couple of days: but I haven't heard from him and that has been three weeks.” The Phillies were eventually sold in February 1943 to wealthy thirty-three-year-old lumber broker William Cox.

41
. Jules Tygiel interview with Veeck, August 11, 1980, National Baseball Library; interviews with Shirley Povich,
Washington Post
, May 10, 1953, and February 6, 1960.

42
. Interview with Monte Irvin, November 7, 2008.

43
.
Pittsburgh Courier
, June 24, 1961. The quote appears in a Wendell Smith column in which the plan is discussed in detail.

44
. In 1980 when discussing the incident, he would admonish author Jules Tygiel not to put him “in the guise of sociologist” for what he was attempting to do. Tygiel interview with Veeck, August 11, 1980, National Baseball Library.

45
. UPI,
Milwaukee Journal
, December 4, 1942;
Daytona Beach Morning Journal
, December 4, 1942;
Baltimore Afro-American
, December 12, 1942.

46
.
Chicago Defender
, December 26, 1942.

47
. Ibid., February 26, 1949.

48
. Murry R. Nelson,
The National Basketball League: A History, 1935–1949
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 118–19; Douglas Stark, “Paving the Way: History of Integration of African Americans into Professional Basketball League,”
Basketball Digest
, February 2001. Roosie Hudson commented on his integrated team in Nelson's book: “The Studebakers played team ball no matter who was on the court. It didn't matter if there were three black players or two white in the game or three whites and two blacks, we played as a team. There was no difference.”

1
.
Milwaukee Journal
, February 3, 1943, 2. R. G. Lynch of the
Milwaukee Journal
had been there for the snowball fight and reported on the transformation of Rudie Schaffer.

2
.
Milwaukee Journal
, February 19, 1943.

3
.
Look
, September 7, 1943.

4
.
Woman's Day
, May 1954.

5
.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
, March 1, 1943, 6.

6
. AP,
Prescott Evening Courier
, June 18, 1943.

7
.
Milwaukee Journal
, October 14, 1943, 37.

8
.
Milwaukee Sentinel
, August 1, 1943;
Chicago Tribune
, August 3, 1943, 19.

9
.
Chicago Tribune
, August 29, 1943.

10
.
Look
, September 7, 1943.

11
.
Sporting News
, December 2, 1943.

12
.
Milwaukee Journal
, April 19, 1944, 28.

13
. Ibid., November 21, 1943, 97.

14
. Ibid., September 28, 1943.

15
. Ibid., November 28, 1943, 11.

16
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 9, 1945, 15.

17
.
Milwaukee Journal
, November 30, 1941.

18
. Minutes of the Joint Meeting of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs and the American League of Base Ball Clubs, Hotel Roosevelt, December 3, 1943, 10:30 a.m., 3 (hereafter Joint Meeting Minutes). These minutes were made available to the author by Jim Gates at the National Baseball Library and Archives in 2009. This appears to be the first public airing of Robeson's testimony and the reaction to it.

19
. Joint Meeting Minutes, December 3, 1943, 3.

20
.
New York Times
review of the play by Lewis Nichols, October 20, 1943. “The news, of course, is Mr. Robeson's arrival back home in a part he played a few seasons ago in London and tentatively experimented with in the rural playhouses the summer before last. He looks like the part. He is a huge man, taller by inches than anyone on the stage, his height and breadth accentuated by the costumes he wears. His voice, when he is the general giving orders to stop the street brawl,
reverberates through the house; when he is the lover of Desdemona, he is soft. His final speech about being a man ‘who loved not wisely but too well' is magnificent. He passes easily along the various stages of Othello's growing jealousy. He can be alike a commanding figure, accustomed to lead, a lover willing to be led and the insane victim of his own ill judgment.”