Bill Veeck (73 page)

18
. “It's Been a Wild 50 Years: Wrigley's Famous Cheap Seats Celebrate Silver Anniversary,”
St. Petersburg Times
, June 14, 1987; “Pork Chops with Bill,”
Sporting News
, December 27, 1999.

19
. Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98.

20
.
Chicago Tribune
, September 21, 1983.

21
. Ibid., September 25, 1983.

22
. Ira Berkow, “Sports of the Times: The Pied Piper,”
New York Times
, January 4, 1986.

23
.
Chicago Tribune
, November 16, 1983;
Bonham Daily Favorite
, November 3, 1983;
St. Joseph Gazette
, November 17, 1983.

24
.
Chicago Tribune
, December 7, 1983; interview with Greg Veeck, March 12, 2011.

25
. “Veeck's Hip Broken in Fall,”
Chicago Tribune
, July 4, 1984.

26
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 5, 1986.

27
. William Nack, “At Last, the Cubs Are First,”
Sports Illustrated
, October 1, 1984.

28
.
North Shore
, October 1985, 20.

29
. This story is re-told in Father Fitzgerald's homily delivered at Veeck's funeral, Veeck Papers, Chicago History Museum.

30
. Bill Granger, “A Get Well Card to Bill Veeck,”
Chicago Tribune
, October 17, 1984.

31
. Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98, no. 167.

32
.
Chicago Tribune
, November 13, 1984, C2.

33
. New York
Daily News
, 1985.

34
.
Chicago Magazine
, April 1986.

35
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 18, 1985.

36
. Her recollections appear on the WTTW website,
http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,54
. She also wrote in her tribute to Veeck: “I have chauffeured some well-known folks since: from ‘Frugal Gourmet' Jeff Smith to Huey Lewis, Steppenwolf's Terry Kinney, and Maya Angelou. But there was no one like Bill Veeck. He was the most approachable and down-to-earth person of any celebrity with whom I worked. He was so instantly recognizable that wherever we were—on the streets of Hyde Park, at a Cubs game, or in down-state Champaign—all types of people crowded around him and wanted to say hello. And he said hello back, and talked. At Wrigley Field, he could only walk a few steps without someone stopping him.”

37
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 19, 1985.

38
.
Sporting News
, October 14, 1985.

39
.
Columbia Chronicle
, January 21, 1986.

40
.
Dallas Morning News
, January 3, 1986.

41
. Conversation recalled by Greenberg on the morning of Veeck's death and reported by Ira Berkow, “Sports of the Times: The Pied Piper,”
New York Times
, January 4, 1986.

42
. UPI dispatch, January 2, 1986.

43
. Interview with Lisa Veeck, March 16, 2011.

44
. Ibid.

45
.
North Shore
, January 1986, 20.

46
. Peter Richmond in
GQ
; Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98, no.

47
. Fitzgerald homily, in Veeck Papers.

48
. Program, “Mass of the Resurrection for Bill Veeck (1914–1986),” Veeck Papers.

49
. Interview with Wyonella Smith, March 19, 2011.

50
.
Washington Post
, January 3, 1996, C1.

51
.
Chicago Sun-Times
, January 3, 1986.

52
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 21, 1986.

53
.
Ventura County Star Free Press
, January 11, 1986.

54
.
People's Daily World
, January 16, 1986.

55
. Veeck Papers. The original telegram is in a collection of letters and news clippings now housed in the National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, New York.

56
. Ed Linn,
A Great Connection: The Story of Molex
(Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1988), 70.

57
. The affected players were Joaquín Andújar, Dale Berra, Enos Cabell, Keith Hernandez, Jeffrey Leonard, Dave Parker, and Lonnie Smith.

58
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 7, 1986.

59
.
Vineline
, March 1986.

60
.
Chicago Magazine
, April 1986.

1
. Bowie Kuhn,
Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner
(New York: Times Books, 1987), 212.

2
. Albert B. Chandler,
Heroes, Plain Folks and Skunks: The Life and Times of Happy Chandler
(Chicago: Bonus Books, 1989), 199.

3
.
New York
Daily News
, February 3, 1981.

4
.
Initiatives
no. 27, July 1988. A copy was sent to Mary Frances Veeck with a note from the editor: “Note our lead story.”

5
. Philip Bess, “Bill Veeck Park: A Modest Proposal,”
National Pastime
, Winter 1987.

6
.
Chicago Sun-Times
, January 11, 1990.

7
.
Pittsburgh Press
, February 27, 1991, 12.

8
.
New York Times
, January 4, 1986.

9
. The full text of the speech is available at
http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,54
.

10
. Interview with Mike Veeck, June 28, 2008.

11.
Interview with Charlie Brotman, August 10, 2009.

12
. Interview with Stan Kasten, May 12, 2009.

13
. Interview with Andy MacPhail, July 1, 2009.

14
. “Bill Veeck Is Laughing at Yankees,” New York
Daily News
, March 14, 2008.

15
. Interview with Mike Veeck, June 28, 2008.

16
. Interview with Greg Veeck, March 12, 2011.

1
. Interview with Greg Veeck, March 12, 2011.

2
. Interview with Ellen Maggs, March 15, 2011.

3
. Interview with Mike Veeck, June 28, 2008.

4
. Interview with Greg Veeck, March 12, 2011.

5
. Interview with Lisa Veeck, March 16, 2011.

6
.
Chicago Sun-Times
, June 17, 2010.

7
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 14, 1995.

8
. Interview with Mary Frances Veeck, February 6, 2010.

1
. David M. Jordan, Larry R. Gerlach, and John Rossi, “A Baseball Myth Exploded: Bill Veeck and the 1943 Sale of the Phillies,”
National Pastime
, no. 18, 1998, 3–13; Bill Veeck with Ed Linn,
Veeck—as in Wreck
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), 171–72.

2
. Jordan et al., “Baseball Myth Exploded,” 13.

3
. Interview with Mark Armour, March 12, 2011.

4
. Interview with Mike Gimbel, March 15, 2010.

5
. Interview with Marya Veeck, March 17, 2011.

6
. A. S. “Doc” Young,
Great Negro Baseball Stars and How They Made the Major Leagues
(New York: Barnes, 1953), 52.

7
. SABR-L (online mailing list), March 14, 2005.

8
. Jules Tygiel, “Revisiting Bill Veeck and the 1943 Phillies,”
Baseball Research Journal
35, 2007,
http://research.sabr.org/journals/archive/brj
.

9
. Rob Neyer,
Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else
(New York: Fireside, 2008), 29–30.

10
. Interview with Greg Veeck, March 12, 2011.

11
.
Look
, September 7, 1943.

12
.
Chicago Tribune
, January 6, 1986.

13
.
Baseball Digest
, September 1948, 53.

14
.
Chicago Defender
, February 26, 1949.

15
.
Washington Post
, May 10, 1953.

16
.
Chicago Defender
, August 14, 1954.

17
. Jack Mabley,
Who's on First? Fair Play for All Americans
(New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1956), 8.

18
.
New York Times
, July 26, 1974.

19
. Interviews with Mary Frances Veeck, October 2009;
Baltimore Sun
, April 18, 2007.

20
. Interview with Joseph Thomas Moore, August 20, 2009. Fallows's eulogy can be accessed at
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/stephen-banker/57386
. Banker wrote about the Veeck interview in
Black Collegian
, January–February 1979, 30–32.

21
. Jonathan Eig,
Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 181.

^a
Because the United States had just entered World War I, the Series was played a month early, with the last month of the regular season lopped off and the teams in first place at the end of August being awarded the pennant. On December 26, 1919, the Red Sox sold their star pitcher Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, who recognized that his bat was even better than his arm and put him in right field.

^b
Bill Veeck Jr. wrote about this discovery in his 1965 book,
The Hustler's Handbook
. Harry Grabiner would later work for Bill Veeck when he was principal owner of the Cleveland Indians.

^c
The box scores support this. The Cubs were picked off three times, including twice in the decisive game 6. That game was lost 2–1 on a two-run error by Cubs right fielder Max Flack. Game 4 had been tied 2–2 in the eighth inning, when Cubs pitcher Phil Douglas gave up a single, followed by a passed ball, followed by his errant throw on a bunt attempt that allowed the winning run to score.

^d
Ruth batted sixth and remains the only starting pitcher in World Series history to bat other than ninth in the batting order.

^e
Douglas was banned from baseball in 1922 after he offered in writing to a friend on the Cardinals to skip out on the New York Giants (and presumably cost them the pennant) if someone would pay him to head home on the next train.

^f
Loeb was also the father of Richard Loeb, who in 1924 co-conspired with Nathan Leopold to commit the “perfect crime” in the murder of Bobby Frank. The Leopold-Loeb trial, dubbed “the trial of the century,” resulted in both men getting life imprisonment.

^g
The fact that Veeck called on journalists to pursue this rather than owners and club officials is telling, according to Black Sox expert Jacob Pomrenke: “He trusted the writers above all other elements in baseball.”

^h
Hendrix denied any knowledge of a fix, but he never played in organized baseball again after the 1920 season. The Cubs released him in February 1921, with the explanation that they were rebuilding their pitching staff, and no other club signed him.

ⁱ
The eight: pitcher Ed Cicotte, first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil, pitcher Lefty Williams, center fielder Happy Felsch, shortstop Swede Risberg, third baseman Buck Weaver, utilityman Fred McMullin, and one of most popular stars of his time, left fielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

^j
Helene Britton had earlier inherited the St. Louis Cardinals, which she owned from 1911 to 1918.

^k
Years later, in 1954, when Donahue was still with the Cubs as a full vice president, Bill Veeck Jr.—by then an owner himself—called her “as astute a baseball operator as ever came down the pike.” He added, “She has forgotten more baseball in her forty years with the Cubs than most of the so-called magnates will ever know.”

^l
According to the manual given to ushers at Wrigley Field today, Weeghman had earlier introduced a discount on Friday games for women on general admission tickets. Ladies' Day was not an entirely new idea, but the National League had, inexplicably, placed a ban on this promotion in 1909.

^m
Al Capone would arrive with several bodyguards and occasionally a young teen named Sam Pontarelli, one in the extended surrogate family Capone cultivated. On September 9, 1931, Chicago's crime boss got the Cubs' Gabby Hartnett to autograph a baseball before the Cubs defeated the White Sox 3–0. The moment was immortalized by an Associated Press photographer. When the photo appeared in newspapers across the country, an edict came down from Commissioner Landis's office forbidding fraternization between players and fans. Hartnett's reply to Landis's admonishments became legendary: “If you don't want anybody to talk to the Big Guy, Judge, you tell him.” At the time, the boy shown in the photo with Capone was identified as Capone's son, Albert Francis (“Sonny”), but Capone never appeared in public with his immediate family. Even today the boy is incorrectly identified, even on the Associated Press Web site.

ⁿ
According to Scott Jones, it was rumored that Veeck senior also distributed season passes to all the policemen who patrolled the roads from Hinsdale to the ballpark on the north side of Chicago, which presumably allowed him a little extra latitude in driving to and from Wrigley Field.

^o
These were given by the College Board Examination Board of New York City and were precursors to the modern Strategic Aptitude Tests (SATs).

^p
Normally reserved for a crisis—but often extended to baseball—these were special editions hastily printed and hawked by street vendors. During a World Series, there would be at least one newsboy on every corner.