AMERICAN SCHEMERS
20 AMERICAN HISTORY
BETTMANN
/GETTYIMA
G
ES(^2)reveling
wreck
He smoked four packs a day, drank a case of
beer a day, read a book a day. He hobbled on
a wooden leg—the result of a World War II
wound—but loved to dance exuberantly. He
refused to wear ties and preferred a cheap seat
in the bleachers, even when he owned the sta-
dium. He was baseball’s resident intellectual
and most gleefully vulgar self-promoter. A cun-
ning capitalist who owned three big-league
teams, he voted for perennial Socialist presi-
dential candidate Norman Thomas—even after
Thomas died. “I’d rather vote for a dead man
with class than two live bums,” he explained.
His name was Bill Veeck—Veeck As in
Wreck, he titled his first memoir. In a second
memoir, The Hustler’s Handbook, he offered a
winking self-description: “A hustler travels by
magic carpet and says (shouts, cries, coos),
‘Come fly with me.’”
Born in 1914, Veeck grew up in baseball. His
father was president of the Chicago Cubs and
Bill spent his childhood at Wrigley Field,
studying the game and the business. When
Veeck senior died in 1933, the Cubs hired his
son as an office boy. Seething with ideas—he
designed the Wrigley scoreboard and sug-
gested planting the now-famous ivy on the
outfield wall—he was promoted to treasurer.
But he wanted his own team and in 1941 he
bought one—the bankrupt, last-place minor-
league Milwaukee Brewers. He later owned
the Cleveland Indians (1946-49), the St. Louis
Browns (1951-53), and the Chicago White Sox
(1959-61, 1975-80). He took two teams to the
World Series but earned fame not for winning
but for outrageous stunts. Sportswriters
dubbed him “the Barnum of Baseball.”
Veeck put blackboards in stadium bath-
rooms to encourage graffiti. He presented
umpires with bouquets of rotting vegetables
while the PA system blared “Three Blind
Mice.” To punctuate a doubleheader, he staged
a full-blown circus—with acrobats, sword
swallowers, and nine elephants. He invented
Baseball Beat
Told his St. Louis
Browns were better
musicians than
athletes, Veeck sent
a quartet with
Satchel Paige on
snare drum out to
home plate to
serenade fans.
BY PETER CARLSON