The White Sox are in the World Series. I hope Bill Veeck is smiling. The NY Times has written a wonderful tribute to the eccentric owner. Excerpts:
Veeck, with a bright, boyish look in his eye even when his face aged and wrinkled, was often referred to as the Barnum & Bailey of Baseball for his stunts, and the Pied Piper in the way he drew fans to the ballparks. He owned three major league teams - the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns and the White Sox - and a few minor league teams, and almost all of them set attendance records.
Indeed, he sent Eddie Gaedel, a midget, to the plate for the Browns in a 1951 game. (He walked.)
At season's end, Veeck used signs to poll the fans about the Browns' strategy for Manager Zack Taylor, who sat in a rocking chair and wore slippers. (The other team said this was "unbaseball," but the Browns won.) He also brought pennants to two teams, the Indians (in 1948) and the White Sox, who had gone a combined 68 years without one.
Before the White Sox ended their drought in 1959, Veeck entertained fans at a game that May with midgets dressed in spacesuits who landed on the field by helicopter.
"Of all the unusual things my father did in baseball," said Mike Veeck, 54, the owner of five minor league teams, "my favorite hands down was the exploding scoreboard."
The 130-foot scoreboard at old Comiskey Park loomed beyond center field; when a White Sox player homered, it set off fireworks, screeching sounds and 10 electronic pinwheels. . .
Veeck had bought the majority rights to the White Sox from the original owners, the Comiskey family. "We never had a box," Mary Frances Veeck said. "Bill liked to sit out with the people."
Mike Veeck recalled: "I'd walk into the park with him. He'd be holding my hand and he had this funny gait, and everyone would say hello to him: the vendors, the security guy, the receptionist. It was all so joyous. And then the team winning the pennant. For an 8-year-old kid, it was like I had died and gone to heaven."
