As the baseball season of 2007 comes down to a close, and seeing the Cubs waste another chance at a championship, I began to think about something that’s been really missing in baseball. I mean, to me, baseball now is too much of a big business; all money and no fun. They even figured out if a family went to a baseball game; a father and mother with two kids, get tickets and each purchase a soft drink and hot dog, along with a souvenir apiece, their tab would be a little over two hundred dollars! Just to go to a baseball game, it would cost someone a car payment’s worth. It’s nuts, what happened to going to see a game for merely five dollars or ten dollars, and programs costing only a buck instead of six or seven dollars? So that’s why I thought about a man that truly loved the fans and loved baseball at the same time; Bill Veeck Jr. Bill Veeck was born on Feb. 9, 1914 in Chicago and grew up in Hinsdale, IL. His father, Bill Veeck Sr., served as a beat writer for the Chicago Cubs until being hired as an employee then worked his way to be the president for the team. Growing up around the business of baseball, Bill Veeck was working in Wrigley Field by the age of thirteen as a popcorn vendor, groundskeeper, and ticket vendor. After his father passed away in 1933, Bill Jr. dropped out of college to become the club’s treasurer. One of his first innovations in baseball was planting the ivy that is on the outfield wall of Wrigley Field. Ever since at a young age, Bill Jr. always wanted to make the outfield wall more desirable instead of being a bare surface of bricks. So, in 1937, he ordered the groundskeepers to plant ivy onto the wall to make the field more homelier to fans and players alike. Also, in the same year, Bill Jr. started on a project to construct the hand-operated scoreboard still in use today at Wrigley Field. He would be involved with the Chicago Cubs until 1941 when he moved to Milwaukee to purchase the then minor league team Brewers. Bill Jr. was in a partnership with former Cub star and manager Charlie Grimm, and during that the team won three pennants. However, also during that time Bill Jr. served in the Marines during World War II, being part of an artillery crew. While being part of the crew, a recoiling artillery piece crushed his leg, having at first amputate his foot, and later his whole leg. It would result in his now famous peg leg, which he installed an ashtray on the bottom of it. Also, during this time he acquired to purchase the financially strapped Philadelphia Phillies and sign stars from the Negro Leagues to play on the team. However, the commissioner at the time, Kenshaw Mountain Landis, who was also a racist, vetoed the sale and arranged the National League to own the team. This would one of many deeds Bill Jr. would do for civil rights among minorities. After coming home from the war, he sold his half of the Brewers and began his project to buy a Major League team. In 1946, Bill Jr. completed it by buying the Cleveland Indians. His first moves were to get stars from the Negro Leagues to play on his team, and once the color barrier was lifted after Jackie Robinson, he signed players Larry Doby and Satchel Paige. Also, he installed a movable outfield fence that would be placed between series, depending on whether it would help the Indians or not. But once it was found out by the American League, they passed a rule that all outfield walls were to be in a permanent spot for all games and series. In 1948, the Cleveland Indians would win the pennant and the World Series, marking the only time a team owned by Bill Veeck would do both those things. In the next year, as a marketing ploy, Bill Jr. would bury the World Series flag when it became obvious the Indians were not going to repeat it’s championship. Later on in 1949, after a terrible divorce from his first wife, Bill Jr. was forced to sell the Indians, and would not be back in baseball until two years later. He would get married for the second time, and would end up buying the St. Louis Browns in an attempt to win the people over the Cardinals. It would be here when Bill Jr. would put together some of his most memorable publicity stunts. He spited the Cardinals owner, Fred Saigh, by hiring Cardinal greats Roger Hornsby and Marty Marion as managers, and Dizzy Dean to announce their games. Also, back then both teams shared the same stadium, which was called Sportsman’s Park, so Bill Jr. would decorate the park with Browns memorabilia. One of the first known publicity stunts he did was hire a midget named Eddie Gaedel to pinch hit. Standing less than four feet tall, Eddie Gaedel would become the shortest baseball player in the history of the game, and in his only at-bat, he drew a base on balls on four straight pitches. Another publicity stunt Bill Jr. did was Grandstand Manager’s Day where the attendance, which included well known managers Connie Mack and Bob Fishel, to direct the game with placards. The Browns ended up winning the game by the score of 5 to 3, ending a four game losing streak. After the 1952 season, Bill Jr. suggested to the American League for clubs to share radio and television revenue with visiting ball clubs. The notion was outvoted, as a result of the hearing, Bill Jr. refused to let Brown’s opponents to broadcast games while playing against his team. The League responded back by eliminating the lucrative Friday night games in St. Louis. Later on in 1952, Fred Saigh was convicted of tax evasion, and in an attempt to not get banned from baseball, he sold the Cardinals to Anheuser-Busch. Unable to afford the renovations necessary to bring Sportsman’s Park up to code, Bill Jr. was forced to sell his half to the beer company as well, resulting his loss of a bargaining chip and any chance of fair competition in St. Louis. He considered on moving the Browns back to Milwaukee, were the franchise first began in 1901, but the other American League owners denied him permission to do so. Then, tried to move out to the lucrative-yet-still untapped market of Los Angeles, but was denied as well. So Bill Jr. would end up selling the Browns, which ended up moving to Baltimore and became the Orioles, and went out of baseball again. He wouldn’t return until 1959 by being part of a group that bought controlling interest in the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox that year ended up winning the pennant, their first in forty years, and their attendance mushroomed up to 1.4 million people, making it the most ever in franchise history. Then, the following year, the attendance record was broken yet again, at 1.6 million. Also in that year, Bill Jr. put together a project to make the first “exploding” scoreboard, equipped with sound effects and fireworks so when a White Sox player hit a home run, the sky would light up and the ballpark would be filled with noise. Another innovation he put together was putting the player’s surnames onto the back of their uniforms. However, Bill Jr.’s first tenure with the White Sox was short-lived, as poor health made him sell his share of the team. After that, he was persuaded by his former partner in Cleveland, Hank Greenberg, to join him in being a minority partner for a new ball club in Los Angeles. However, when the Dodgers’s owner, Walter O’Malley heard about the deal, he brought it to a complete halt by invoking his exclusive right to operate a Major League team in Southern California, so he didn’t have to compete with a master promoter such as Bill Veeck. As a result, Bill Jr. would not be back in baseball until 1975 when we again bought the Chicago White Sox from John Allyn in order to keep the team from moving to Seattle. This would be the last time he would own and operate a baseball team. For the next five years, Bill Jr. would create even more memorable publicity stunts. In 1976, for one game during a double header, Bill Jr. had the players on the White Sox wear shorts. It would be the first and only time that would be done on any team. In 1977, he created what was called “Rent a Player” in order to adapt to the Free Agency by acquiring players in their option years. Oscar Gamble and Richie Zisk were the players he picked from it, and thus created the South Side Hitmen year where the White Sox won ninety games and finished in third place. And in the same year, Bill Jr. saw how well the connection was between the fans and then-announcer, Harry Carey. As a result, he had a microphone installed into his booth and would sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seven inning stretch to the audience. In 1979, Bill Jr. had free admission on Opening Day. Also in that same year, teamed up with well known radio DJ, Steve Dahl, to have Disco Demolition Night. It was during a double header with the Detroit Tigers, the admission was only 98 cents and a disco record. Originally, the plan was simple, in between games, all the records that were brought to the park were to be blown up by Steve Dahl. The plan did not go well, and the result was almost 50,000 people from the stands coming out to the field and rioting, with records flying all over the place. The second game of the double header had to be cancelled. The free agency era would be the end of Bill Jr. owning a team, and at the end of the 1980 season he sold the White Sox to a partnership featuring Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn, ending an era of family owned franchises. After his last tenure, Bill Jr. retired to his home in Maryland with his wife, and would go to Sox and Cubs games occasionally. In 1984, he had one of his lungs removed as a result of emphysema, and then died in January 2, 1986 from a pulmonary embolism after three decades of smoking three to four packs of cigarettes a day. Five years later, Bill Veeck would be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
