BIll Veeck in 1944
A true innovator, pioneer and maverick in the staid world of Major League Baseball. Known as “Sportshirt Bill”, because he never wore of a tie, he chain-smoked, drank martinis, and seemed not to understand the need for meals or sleep.
Bill’s father, Bill, Sr., was a sportswriter who later became president of the Chicago Cubs. Ever the dutiful son, Bill Jr. took after-school & summer employment with the team. As part of his duties as part-time groundskeeper, he planted the ivy that still grows on the outfield walls at Wrigley Field.
The younger Veeck bought the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers in 1941, mostly by assuming existing debt, but also starting a lifelong habit of trading with other people’s money (in this case, ex-Cub Charlie Grimm).
Paraphrasing Juvenal, the first-century Roman satirist, he said, “You can draw more people with a losing team plus bread and circuses than with a losing team and a long, still silence” and set about to prove it by staging every promotion that he could imagine, both outrageous (giving away live farm animals, staging weddings at home plate) and practical (scheduling morning games for fans coming off night shift – Milwaukee in the 40’s was smack-dab in the middle of America’s ndustrial heartland).
However, Bill also said, “There is no known substitute for winning, and no known cure for losing. We are dealing here only with remedial action.” By his astute horse-trading of players, the Brewers manged 3 Pacific Coast League pennants in the five years that they were owned by Veeck, which netted him a tidy profit of $275,000.00 when he sold the club.
Veeck joined the Marines in 1943, so he was in the South Pacific for two of those victories. His military service cost him his right leg, as the recoil from an artillery piece crushed it and necessitated amputation. He then had his prosthetic limb drilled out so that he could use it as an ashtray!
Part II of this story will follow in a day or two…
D. J. Crossley’s Home on the Web 