Word: veeck
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...league teams. For years, the American League Browns, winners of one pennant (1944) in 50 years, have barely kept out of the red. Rival American League teams, including such drawing cards as the New York Yankees, lose money on the trip to St. Louis. Last year, after effervescent Bill Veeck (rhymes with heck) bought the doormat Browns, things began to change. Using the showman stunts that brought fans out in droves when he owned the Cleveland Indians, Veeck shot off fire works before games, imported jitterbugs and contortionists, selected grandstand managers to help run the team, handed out free drinks...
...interest began to perk up under Veeck's Barnum & Bailey tactics, not because the Browns were going anywhere in the pennant race (they finished last, 46 games behind the Yankees), but because the fans wanted to see what Veeck would do next. Cardinal Owner Fred Saigh (rhymes with high), whose club has drawn over a million fans every year of the five Saigh has owned it, countered by placing ads in the St. Louis papers extolling the Cardinals as "a dignified St. Louis institution." The struggle for fans...
...Bill Veeck, who doesn't like to own a loser, and Rogers Hornsby, who doesn't like to manage one, may make the Brownles the surprise team of the league...
...Bill Veeck, new president of the St. Louis Browns, and Fred Saigh, president of the Cardinals (who have hardly spoken to each other for the past six months), called off their feud long enough to appear as Romeo and Juliet on a local radio show for the Red Cross blood bank. Picked by the studio audience, Veeck played Romeo to Saigh's Juliet. Said Veeck later-"I congratulated him. He made a dignified Juliet. It was purely platonic...
...Real Productions." This week Bill Veeck was busily planning to continue his "real productions"-fireworks and aerial bombs which loose parachuting Old Glories, parades, dancing, and a pantomimistcontortionist in the role of first-base coach. Such zany antics are not likely to have much effect on the Browns' standing in the league. But to the disgust of Cardinal President Fred Saigh, who has yet to exchange a word with brash Bill Veeck, the Browns are pulling their biggest crowds of the year...