-
Not a Dark Age, Just 50 Shades of Gray
March 16, 2013 | 0 comments
-
Whose Rule of Law?
October 31, 2012 | 15 comments
-
Will the LIBOR Scandal Help Re-Elect Obama?
July 30, 2012 | 17 comments
-
Risk Responsibly
September 23, 2011 | 18 comments
-
Among the Miserabilists
March 10, 2011 | 13 comments
Buy the Book
When Baseball Was More Than a Game
That’s when someone like Bill Veeck was around and indispensable.
Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick
By Paul Dickson
(Walker & Co., 418 pages, $29.50)
I confess I don’t much like today’s major league baseball—or MLB, as it is branded—for the same reason I can’t understand why any sane person would go to Las Vegas for any but the most sordid reasons.
So I was vastly entertained by Paul Dickson’s biography of Bill Veeck, the wild man baseball impresario from Chicago. In addition to being an authoritative chronicle of how the game used to be in that halcyon fifty years between 1930 and 1980, it also gives off a reminiscent aura of grass outfields, the comforting feel of a hard bleacher seat, and air made redolent of popcorn and tobacco.
Dickson calls Veeck a maverick and he certainly was that. But he was more than that. He was a visionary whose dream was as king-sized as his ego and just as flawed.
What Bill Veeck hoped to achieve was the transformation of the sport from being a national pastime to becoming a national cultural experience—one open to all Americans, one that would be both portable and accessible for a people who were on the move from one hometown to new opportunities elsewhere. Wherever they went, baseball would be there. It was not Veeck’s fault that instead baseball has turned into a sterile travesty of corporate boxes, luxury hotdogs, and stupid mascots. A game played by steroid-swollen prima donnas whose salaries would make a hedge-fund manager blush.
One of the strong points of this book is the easy-reading, yet knowledgeable voice of the author. And for good reason. What Dr. Samuel Johnson was to lexicography, Paul Dickson is to baseball. Johnson is best remembered for his massive 18th century Dictionary of the English Language but he also was a prolific essayist on every topic under the sun. So, too, Dickson’s 974-page Baseball Dictionary is the standard reference on that topic. But there is not enough space to list the 55 other books he has written on topics from the space program, to the special languages of war and boozing, to ice cream, political history, and, not least, about baseball.
Dickson’s subject comes across as a contradictory mix of working class huckster, prep school intellectual, idealist, and trickster. But his commitment to baseball was genuine enough, rooted in the heritage passed on to him by his father, Bill Veeck, Sr.
That inheritance began at the dawn of the last century when the elder Veeck broke in as a young reporter on the storied old Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper. Within five years he was on staff as a baseball writer and columnist on the madcap Hearst-owned Chicago Evening American, where he covered both the White Sox and the Cubs in the company of such storied writers as Ring Lardner.
Veeck Sr. became increasingly incensed at the way a sport he loved was being mismanaged by owners and embarrassed by corrupt players in the pay of gamblers who routinely fixed games. In 1918, a year before the infamous Black Sox scandal that rocked organized baseball, Veeck met William Wrigley, the chewing gum manufacturer and fan of the Cubs. At a dinner at Wrigley’s home, the sportswriter unloaded his belief that by skillful marketing, a huge fan based could be created for the Cubs and the increased financial flow would go a long way to effectively policing the team and keeping it immune from the blandishments of the gamblers.
Wrigley, intrigued, took control of the Cubs that autumn and surprised everyone by naming Veeck vice president and treasurer. Veeck’s first act was to improve the accommodations provided at the rest rooms for women fans. Then he ordered cleaner uniforms for the players. As the fan base grew, Veeck Sr. pioneered radio broadcasts of Cubs games on a clear-channel station that reached deep into the Middle West and made the team a regional favorite.
Bill Veeck, Jr. was so deeply immersed in baseball by his father that by the time he was twelve, he developed the life-long certainty that he, too, would be a team owner. Yet his parents sent him off to a series of unhappy prep schools and to Kenyon College until, in the Depression year of 1933, Veeck Sr. died. Bill Junior dropped out of school and went to work for the Cubs as an office boy. It was the start of a career that would transform the game.
Working from his father’s belief that people who pay to watch a baseball game should feel they were getting value for their money, Veeck soon worked his way into being in charge of the Cubs concession operations. Along the way he made friends with another hustler named Ray Kroc, who sold paper cups for the various beverages on sale; Kroc would later found the McDonald’s hamburger empire and, incidentally, become an owner of the San Diego Padres. While he was still in his twenties, Veeck rose within the Cubs organization to hold his father’s old job as treasurer.
Bill Junior got his dream in 1941, when he was 27 and became a half-owner of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers. World War II saw him serve for three years in the Marines, where he lost a leg in an artillery accident and thereafter got about on a series of wooden artificial limbs that became part of his public persona. He often would stub out cigarettes on it.
That persona was deliberately brash. Dickson describes him as “a tall, chain-smoking, charismatic, photogenic redhead with a big open face and a voice so deep and compelling that writer Dave Kindred said it ‘came as a train in the night.’” He was a prodigious beer drinker and raw steak eater.
Along the way he became the owner of the Cleveland Indians where he signed Larry Doby as the first black player in the American League. Cleveland won its first World Series since 1920 in Veeck’s first year of ownership. He then owned the St. Louis Browns in the early fifties where—yes, he actually sent a midget named Eddie Gaedel into a game with the Detroit Tigers as a pinch hitter. From there it was back to Chicago and the White Sox, who true to form went on to win their first pennant in forty years—powered no doubt by Veeck’s installation of the first “exploding scoreboard.”
The point of the life of Bill Veeck is that he tried to make baseball a game that anyone—black or white—could play as a sport that anyone—man, woman, or child—would want to watch and enjoy the often slow but always elegant interplay of ball, bat, and glove on a warm afternoon or a soft evening. That he virtually had to fist-fight his way past the clenched minds of other team owners and pusillanimous league officials is his tragedy.
It is our loss too. But happily, this book reminds us of a happier time when events could have gone another, better, way.
About the Author
James Srodes, an author and broadcaster, is a former Washington bureau chief for Forbes and Financial Worldmagazines. His latest book, On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World, is being published next week. His email address is srodesnews@msn.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (24) | Leave a comment
More Articles by James Srodes
More Articles From Buy the Book
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/04/17/when-baseball-was-more-than-a
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
The Spectacle Blog
Former IRS Commissioner Refused to Say That Targeting Conservative Groups is Wrong
Benjamin Brophy | 2:27PM
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
John Drake| 4.17.12 @ 9:00AM
Thanks for the memories of Bill Veeck. I was a vendor at Sox Park from '73 to '75. Veeck would come done and sit with the fans in the box seats and enjoy their company from time to time. He'd put his wooden leg up on the seat top in front of him (given attendance was so far down back then you could practically sit anywhere or put your leg up anywhere and not bother anyone), with his pants leg fallen back just enough to see the "wood" between his cuff and sock top. I don't recall him ever putting a cigarette butt out on it, but that wouldn't surprise me. He was a class act, a man of his times, who loved the game and loved the fans. No one like him exists today nor will they ever again I suspect. It was great to observe while it lasted. Go Sox!
JohnD| 4.17.12 @ 9:18AM
In 1951, when Bill Veeck owned the St Louis Browns, he suggested at a meeting of the owners that all the teams in MLB share revenues. The other owners were outraged by the very suggestion, and some even called Veeck a "Communist" and a few of the owners almost came to blows with Veeck over the very suggestion. Two years later when Veeck wanted to move the Browns to Baltimore, the owners blocked the move just to get back at Veeck (part of an ongoing abuse of Baltimore sports fans that continues to this day-Bob Irsay anyone?). It wasn't until, Veeck sold the Browns that the owners allowed them to move to Baltimore in 1954.
The NFL now does precisely what Veeck suggested, and they have supplanted baseball as the national pastime. Baseball needs to share revenues (really share revenues, not the fake revenue sharing they have now) like the NFL to become legitimate again.
Purp| 4.17.12 @ 11:06AM
If you think of it, the Draft is just as communistic.
canuckistani| 4.17.12 @ 12:10PM
Right on target.
Is there a more Stalinist org than the NFL? Land grabs, forced revenue sharing, tax-payer extortion, government-protected interests, central committee-like management and a slimy relationship with another member of the Warsaw er I mean the Football Pact: the NCAA.
Baseball is just fine demonstrating how unmitigated capitalism can frame the game. The Yankees ploughed the road to a $200M payroll amost 10 years ago. A decade later - only 1 win and another 5 teams over $160M crowding the circuit. The taxpayer extorion deals are a mere pittance compared to the No Fun League.
These facts have made the league better by forcing owners out of the baseball operations and turned them over to professionals. The No Fun League still have about 10 owners that look at their teams as life-sized stratego games.
Zero football chops, but with government backed $1B chits, they suddenly are in the game.
JohnD| 4.17.12 @ 12:36PM
I would disagree. The public loves football, and one of the reasons the NFL is popular is the level playing field the salary cap and revenue sharing provides. Every team has a fair shot going into each season.
You mention the Yankees and their $200 million payroll producing only one WS win - That may be true, but they have also priced 2/3 of the teams out of free agency and denied Baltimore or Toronto any glimmer of hope at being able to compete.
MLB has basically told fans in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and other small-to-medium cities that they mean nothing in their Yankee-centered league, and fans there have responded accordingly. By contrast, the NFL has strong franchises in the three cities mentioned above, all of whom have been in the post-season at least once in the last 2 seasons.
This is why the NFL is king and baseball lost its prominence.
JimP| 4.17.12 @ 7:35PM
The problem with baseball is not the Yankees with too much money etc. Baltimore, for one example, has a lousy owner who doesn't really care about winning and has had poor upper management since Davey Johnson got fired back in.... was it '97? The Yankees didn't make the O's give Albert Bell mega bucks only to see him epically fail: and that's just one of the bad moves they have been making for almost a generation. By contrast look at the Rays for what can be done. Other problems with MLB are the announcers for the games. Most are boring if not down right obnoxious. They don't know how to build interest in the game, IMO. Add the MLB 'Channel' for another problem. It's supposed to promote interest in the game, but it's awful. It's chaotic, poorly organized, and the endless 'hilight' clips from games lack any context and thus meaning or entertainment value/interest. Seeing one guy after another hit a homerun in a endless rapidfire string of clips without context is boring. I love baseball, but it's boring on tv, in large part because of the way it is presented by announcers.
Purp| 4.17.12 @ 10:42PM
Lets see, without exemptions from anti-trust where would baseball be?
JohnD| 4.18.12 @ 12:03AM
The Albert Belle deal was a disaster, but unlike the Yankees, who can whiff on a few $20 million free agents a year, teams like the Orioles cannot. You can blame Angelos for some of the Orioles problems, but I think the disparity in revenues and payroll are the biggest culprit.
Bob K.| 4.17.12 @ 8:52PM
Let me guess. You are a teacher's aid for pre-schoolers and run the recesses where every kid has to be treated equally on the level playing field. Right?
JohnD| 4.18.12 @ 12:04AM
No, but it would seem in any form of competition, you would want to start out with something resembling a level playing field. Maybe you would pay to see Mike Tyson fight a three year old, but I wouldn't.
albert constantine jr.| 4.18.12 @ 12:44PM
It would depend on whether or not it was a three year old who had a tantrum and destroyed my stereo, as an example.
JP| 4.17.12 @ 9:19AM
Bill Veek, if I am not mistaken, hired Harry Carey to broadcast Sox games. Great move. Many people outside of Chitown don't know that Harry Carey was a Southsider first before getting an offer to broadcast for the Northsiders.
Purp| 4.17.12 @ 11:05AM
Sox fans had no love for the drunken stumblebum Harry Carey who would slur his words so bad they all ran together. Carey was the perfect fit for the Northsiders. They heard all words as slurred anyway.
ejp| 4.17.12 @ 11:12AM
Wrong. Caray was hired by the White Sox in 1971, five years before Veeck bought the team again.
I stand first and foremost in celebrating baseball history, but there is IMO a danger in constantly overromanticizing baseball's past for the sake of running down is present. Does this bio mention that it was Veeck's ownership decisions that basically wrecked the White Sox in the early 60s and kept them from winning another pennant? (not to mention the fact that the team's winning a pennant in 1959 was with a nucleus of players assembled by the previous ownership).
I've been a fan of the game since 1976, and while some things haven't changed for the better IMO, the game is still a great game with the power to entertain and reveal why its superior to all other games as the dramatic final day of the 2011 season and the heartstopping Game 6 of the World Series revealed.
Pete| 4.17.12 @ 11:11AM
My hero was Minnie Minoso who unfortunately missed that 1959 world series. He had been traded the year before for Al Smith. He later returned to the Sox.
Ironically the team itself had very little power, especially compared to the Yankees. It was pitching and the go-go Sox.
Back then teams had identitities. Even though an AL fan, I knew every player on the Giants, Cubs, Braves and Pirates.
Expansion watered down the product and drugs ruined it.
canuckistani| 4.17.12 @ 12:19PM
Greed ruined it, it will be the competition that saves it. Canceling the WS was the height of hubris for Larry Bud Selig and his cabal of idiots on the governor's panel.
Management of clubs has gotten better, so has broadcasting and sourcing of players worldwide. Every club (save a couple) have upgraded their parks, and the competition without drugs is better than ever.
Yankees have 1 win in over a decade to show for their largesse.
This year has nearly 20 teams going for 10 spots. September will mean something in more markets than ever before.
Tickets are expensive, but the fan knows the money is on the field rather than in the robber-barons pockets in the executive suite.
Bob K.| 4.17.12 @ 9:03PM
All that new stuff is great but it all ends up in a ruin with the playoff games and world series showing up on Television after 900PM in late September and October.
"Ho Hum! Yawn! Another 3 minute delay for a commercial after sitting through 3 pitching changes in the 6th! And I have to get up at 530 AM to get on the road! I think I'll go to bed. Good thing the kids little league ends in July and they have forgotten about baseball or they would be yelling to stay up to watch this and wouldn't want to get up in the morning."
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 4.17.12 @ 3:32PM
I am 62 years old. I remember going to Tiger Stadium in Detroit, getting a bleacher seat for $5.00 (less when I was younger), enjoying the sun and the game and going home in two and a half hours.
Now, the games take three hours plus and are more boring than watching paint dry. That is assuming that they start on time, too.
I read this article about putting a shot clock in the game. It sounds like the commissioner’s office is actually considering it. See the article here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_....._game_last
And here is the money quote; “What we want to do," said Bob Watson, baseball's vice president of on-field operations, "is basically cut down the dead time." Please, yes, do something to cut down the “Dead Time”.
Maybe they should consider bringing back the midgets. At least we would get some comic relief.
Occam's Tool| 4.17.12 @ 4:05PM
The players are spoiled brats. I no longer watch nor care.
Frank Drackman| 4.17.12 @ 4:36PM
Not even the Braves??
What are ya, some kind of a Ho-Mo?, no wait,
even the Turd Burglars like baseball.
Heck, even Nazi Spys had to memorize the starting lineup of the Yankees, which, let me see if I can name..
Lets see, there's A-Rod, Jeter, umm another hispanic guy, another hispanic guy, etc etc...
but if they don't do somethin about players wearing there pants like pajamas, I might cross over to the Dark Side..
No Homo, not soccer..
College Softball,,
More rug munchers than a Mellisa Etheridge concert..
Frank
albert constantine jr.| 4.18.12 @ 12:48PM
"Heck, even Nazi Spys had to memorize the starting lineup of the Yankees"...
"Texas"
"Leaguer"
"What is a Texas Leaguer, Major?"
"Its, uh, some kind of a baseball term..."
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
(Where is Van Johnson when he's needed?)
AVCurmudgeon| 4.18.12 @ 4:15AM
Veeck was also the man who brought Satchel Paige up from the Negro Leagues to pitch enough games to allow him to get a major league pension.
When I was a teenager Veeck wrote a book called "Veeck As In Wreck". Long out of print, it is still one of the great insider accounts of the game.
Crassus| 4.18.12 @ 8:02PM
Anyone here remember Disco Demolition Night? That was a great Veeck idea.
therealguyfaux| 4.20.12 @ 1:22PM
When I was a child, my father took me to a game involving the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers. He pointed to a player warming up who had grey hair, and said, "See that fella? That's Duke Snider, the center fielder-- he got in trouble a few years back..." "What for, Dad?" "He was quoted in an article in a magazine as saying he plays baseball because he's in it for the money." "And?" "Well, people didn't like that he was saying that he has to make as much money as he can while he's still young, because he can't keep playing forever and he's got to have a little bit of money to fall back on while he looks for something else to do with his life." "Well, sure, but why was that such a bad thing to say? I don't get it." "Because he came right out and said that baseball was a business, and that it was as much of a business for him as for the owner of the Dodgers, since they both want to earn as much as they can." "Well, I still don't get why that's so bad." "Because you're still a young kid, and you haven't had your head all filled up with nonsense about how baseball is SO special, like Church or something. Just tell me one thing; Did we have to pay to get into the park today?" "Yes, Dad." "When they stop charging admission and let you in for nothing everyday, then come tell me baseball's not a business; till then, lay off criticizing Snider for saying out loud something everyone knows but won't say!"