Strike Zone

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My buddy Bill Veeck made many a mark in the world of big league baseball, owning his first club at twenty-eight, winning pennants, setting attendance records. Two of Bill’s teams beat the Yankees in their heyday — the ’48 Cleveland Indians and the ’59 White Sox; only one other team managed that feat, the ’54 Indians, which was mostly made up of Veeck’s former players.

And, of course, Bill Veeck was a character as colorful as his exploding-paint-factory sport shirts — one of his many trademarks was a refusal to wear coat and tie — a hard-drinking, chain-smoking extrovert with a wooden leg and a penchant for ignoring such quaint customs as doctors’ orders and a good night’s sleep. Veeck thought nothing of commuting from Cleveland to New York, to hang out with showbiz pals like Frank Sinatra and Skitch Henderson at the Copa, or to fly at the drop of a cap out to Hollywood for a game of charades with Hope and Crosby.

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