Worth a Thousand Words: The Veecks

 

It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. We try to prove that from time to time by presenting a compelling image and not beating it to death with too much verbiage. 

     The photograph below shows the Veeck family of Hinsdale in the late 1920s (the exact date is unknown). Grace DeForest Veeck (1878-1964) and her husband Bill Veeck Sr. (1876-1933) stand on either side of their son Bill Jr. (1914-1986).

 

THE VEECK FAMILY, LATE 1920s

 

Bill Veeck Sr. was a Chicago newspaperman whose frequent and pointed criticisms of the Cubs prompted the team's owner William Wrigley Jr. to challenge him to put his money where his mouth was. Veeck took him up on it, signing on as vice president in 1917. He was promoted to president and general manager in 1919, and served in that role until his untimely demise in 1933. Under Veeck's stewardship the Cubs won pennants in 1918, 1929, and 1932, and smashed all previous attendance records. Their figure of 1,485,166 in 1929 stood as the major-league record for 17 years.

 

Bill Veeck Jr. worked for the Cubs before his father's death and for several years thereafter. He was responsible for two iconic features of Wrigley Field: the towering center-field scoreboard and the ivy on the outfield walls. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II, losing a leg in the process, then undertook a career as a nomadic owner of baseball franchises, including the White Sox from 1959 to 1961 and 1976 to 1980. He introduced the famous exploding scoreboard at Comiskey Park and employed all sorts of stunts to stir up interest in his ballclubs. He was inducted (posthumously) into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.

 "The most beautiful thing in the world," Veeck Jr. said, "is a ballpark filled with people." No doubt his dad would have agreed.

 

 

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