It’s been awhile since the last meeting of the BurningRiver Bookclub, but it’s back with an in depth biography from 2012 of Bill Veeck written by Paul Dickson.
Considering that Veeck died in 1986, 2012 seems fairly late for a look back into the life and career of the former owner of the Indians, Browns and White Sox, but Dickson was still able to interview quite a few people who knew Veeck personally. This included his living family members and colleagues and allowed him to build up a very in depth narrative starting with Veeck senior’s career as a writer, then with the Cubs before getting into Junior’s run. While it seemed odd to start a bio with a couple chapters talking in detail about the subject’s father, this went to show how much of what Veeck did in his career came directly from his father.
[protected-iframe id=”786ec3afbfdd6a63c2934b29a6daa6c1-142507471-107853376″ info=”//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0802778305&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=burnin09-20&language=en_US” ]The stories of Veeck are well known, but reading this book provided great detail into those stories, sometimes proving them and adding further explanation, sometimes showing that they were false or generally misstated. The greatest example of this is the tale of Veeck wanting to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943 and, working with Abe Saperstein of Harlem Globetrotters fame, make them into an all black Major League team. This was due to the popular argument at the time that black and white players could not get along on the same team (something obviously disproved just a few years later). Veeck’s idea was to show that negro league players were equal or better than those in the majors and that others would integrate as soon as they saw the level of competition.
This obviously never ended up happening and the story, which was written in Veeck’s autobiography Veeck as in Wreck, was later denied by an article published on SABR. Dickson not only refutes that article, but added a lengthy appendix to the end of the book to support the view that Veeck did try to purchase the Phillies, but was stopped by the commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. This story alone makes it worth purchasing this book.
It seems obvious in retrospect that Landis was the one who was actively keeping baseball from integration as Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson very shortly after his death in 1944. Veeck followed very closely behind Rickey when he signed Larry Doby to his Indians team in 1947, successfully integrating the American League.
Veeck’s dealings with race relations are well documented in this book in addition to the numerous ways he attempted to change the game of baseball from the front office. Going through the giant impact he had on the game is hard to do in just one book as nearly every promotion that still takes place in baseball originally stemmed from one of his ideas. Even before he was an owner, Veeck was making moves with the Cubs, upgrading Wrigley Field to make it a place full families could go for entertainment rather than just drunk men.
Overall, there are two aspects of Dickson’s book that stick out as positive. First, he downgrades some of Veeck’s more famous incidents like pinch hitting Eddie Gaedel and disco demolition night. Instead, he focuses on Veeck as a man and what he did for baseball, his family and his community. Second, it isn’t all fluff. While the overall story is incredibly positive towards Veeck, he is still portrayed as a human rather than a baseball god and there are negative aspects to his life included as well as the positive. This is important because far too many baseball biographies only like to look at the greats as if they were perfection. Veeck was great, but far from perfect and Dickson provides a great balance while telling the story of the man who could be one of the most important people in baseball history.
[protected-iframe id=”7a275fd91a75cfe4e63199cb0d22c541-142507471-107853376″ info=”//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=burnin09-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=0802778305&asins=0802778305&linkId=4695913923839e2548a34a272fc6604d&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true” frameborder=”0″ style=”width:120px;height:240px;” scrolling=”no”]Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
