Word: veeck
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Black Rock. Bill Veeck, baseball and horse racing impresario, has lost the first round of his fight to bring major league horse racing to the Boston area in the fall...
...When Veeck bought out the twenty-four racing dates of Berkshire Downs two months ago, horseplayers were overjoyed. The reality of a fall meeting at Suffolk Downs seemed virtually assured. Since then, Veeck, a brilliant entrepreneur, has been trying to find his way through the local politicians version of the Porteus maze test...
Finding the cheeze has not been easy. The running surface of the maze could be defined in racetrack terms as heavy, composed of two parts quagmire and one part bog. The first people to lose their feathers over Veeck's proposed fall meeting were the track owners of Rhode Island who had also planned a fall meeting. Depending heavily on many Boston area bettors for their revenue, it was in their best interests to block the Suffolk Downs fall meeting. But, they had no jurisdiction in Massachusetts...
...Bill Veeck signed a midget to play major league baseball. He gave a yacht to one of the outstanding pitchers on his team. This spring various lucky bettors received prizes at Suffolk Downs--from a case of champagne to a steer. It is unfortunate that a man of such rare promotional genius should be fettered by local politics. In the end Veeck's way will bring more money to the state coffers than anyone else's way, and that is what the state is after anyway...
...walked on four straight balls. The league instantly outlawed midgets, prompting Veeck to ask if, at 5 ft. 6 in., Yankee Shortstop Phil Rizzuto classified as "a short ballplayer or a tall midget...