Word: veeck
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...long after sport-shirted Bill Veeck breezed into St. Louis and bought the hapless Browns, a pointed line was added to the score cards of their Sportsman's Park rivals: ''The Cardinals, a dignified St. Louis Institution." The note was good for a few tired jeers from fans who remembered the Cards' rowdy old Gas House Gang. But it was not the kind of hint to faze Showman Bill Veeck, who operates on the theory that baseball can be the greatest show on earth...
...Veeck's first stunt to sell tickets for the Browns' games was. 'Drink on the House" day; fans turned out to guzzle 6,041 soft drinks and 7.596 bottles of beer. The next Veeck inspiration was a team band: Pitchers Al Widmar on bull fiddle and Satchel Paige on drums, Coach Ed Redys on accordion, in a concert at home plate...
...Play Ball." Then Veeck fetched up a gag calculated to rouse angry mutterings throughout baseball's official hierarchy. Against the Detroit Tigers, Veeck led off his batting order with the strangest figure ever to wear a major-league uniform: brandishing a toy bat, a midget (3 ft. 7 in.) named Ed Gaedel stepped up to the plate. Before the Tigers could protest, Manager Taylor produced a bona fide contract, and the baffled umpire said, "Play ball." Tiger Pitcher Bob Cain, obviously afraid of hitting the batter with a fast pitch, admitted defeat by giving Gaedel an intentional walk* (Final...
...Bill Veeck knows that free beer is no substitute for good baseball. He plans to shake up the club, "from manager to batboy," talks of building up his pitching staff (he has only one first-string pitcher, Ned Garver) by dusting off famed old (fiftyish) Relief Pitcher Satchel Paige ("Satch plays better now that he's had all his teeth pulled") and buying a Japanese pitcher now playing in Honolulu ("If a ballplayer can help this club I'll take him if he's blue with pink spots"). He will sift the minor leagues for power hitters...
Branch Rickey, a man who knows mon about baseball than Veeck does, once occupied Veeck's present office. He left a sign on the wall: "Get the ballplayers and the rest will take care of itself." Though the motto worked well for Rickey, Veeck does not agree with it. Says he: "You've always got to be thinking about fans who wish they had gone to the circus. Baseball fans are like anyone else. If you buy breakfast food and it tastes like sawdust, you don't buy any more. That's what's been...