BILL VEECK: A Baseball Legend

by Gerald Eskenazi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 1987

Best known for sending a midget to bat during a 1951 game, innovative club-owner Bill Veeck was the P.T. Barnum of baseball. Here, his colorful career receives serviceable treatment from N. Y. Times sportswriter Eskenazi (A Year on Ice, Hockey, The Fastest Sport, etc.). Veeck was born to and for baseball. His dad presided over the Chicago Cubs for 15 seasons, thus setting a family tradition that Veeck took up with gusto. As told by Eskenazi, Veeck's long baseball life (he bought the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers in 1941, retired from ownership of the Chicago White Sox in 1981) was dominated by one obsession: to remain in the game at any cost. So Veeck, not a rich man, pioneered the now common practice of borrowing others' money to buy a ball club (the Brewers); and, in order to maintain ownership (i.e., to turn a profit), conjured up a slew of crowd-pleasing tactics--which included celebrating home runs with fireworks, establishing gimmicky ballgame days (including a ""Grandstand Managers Day"" when the fans voted plays), bringing the first black into the American Leagues, recycling great Negro League pitcher Satchel Page, and, of course, playing that midget. Perhaps inevitably, Eskenazi demonstrates, Veeck's consuming love of baseball exacted a heavy personal toll: broken relations with wives and children plagued him, as did ill health (including a bum leg that eventually required amputation, permitting Veeck an organic stage for his exhibitionist's temperament: he startled strangers by plunging an ice pick into his trouser-covered wooden prothesis). Not an inspired account--a tad strong on adulation, a bit weak on baseball technicals--but, making copious use of interviews with Veeck intimates, Eskenazi covers all the bases and comes up with a useful biography that will interest many baseball fans.

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION