Sport: Man with the Pink Hair

Only a few friends gathered at Cleveland’s Union Terminal last week when Bill Veeck (rhymes with heck) left town. But Cleveland knew he had been there. For 3½ years, as majority stockholder and impresario of the Cleveland Indians, 35-year-old Promoter Veeck had turned the crank that gave the town its dizziest merry-go-round ride in years.

He spent money like a sailor just ashore. With an expense account of about $100,000 a year, he was the town’s most avid check-snatcher and tipper, its most unflagging patron of flower shops and buyer of sparkling burgundy (which he called “bubble ink”). His pinkish-blond hair was as much a trademark as his open-throat shirt, his fetish against wearing hats, ties or overcoats. “I’m a publicity hound,” he told Cleveland sportwriters when he took over the Indians. And ex-Marine Bill Veeck, who had lost a leg as a result of combat injuries on Bougainville, always made good copy.

Fireworks for Fans. He had grown up in the baseball business, beginning with the Chicago Cubs, where his father was club president. Bill himself had been everything from office boy to treasurer at Wrigley Field; in 1941, with the help of Midwest friends, he had bought control of the Milwaukee Brewers. When he moved into Cleveland after the war, he thought he knew how to give the fans their money’s worth.

Besides baseball, there were fireworks, blaring bands, clowns, bike riders, tightrope walkers balancing above the heads of bleacher fans, a ballpark nursery where mothers could leave the kids while the game was on. As a gag, he gave away live ducks, chickens and pigs. When it looked as though one of his pitchers, Don Black, might have to give up baseball after an injury, Veeck shocked some minority stockholders by giving him a chunk of the receipts from one of Cleveland’s games—a handsome $40,000.

The first season Veeck took over, attendance jumped from 558,182 to over a million; two years later he set a big-league record of 2,620,627.

Suits for Ballplayers. In 1947, Bill Veeck shook Cleveland fans with a threat to sell Lou Boudreau, his star shortstop and playing manager—but no one was certain Veeck had not played it that way deliberately. Boudreau stayed by public acclamation next season, and every time he crossed the plate he scowled up at Veeck’s box. Cleveland thought it knew exactly what Boudreau was muttering—”That’ll show him.” Boudreau in his biggest year in baseball showed the boss so well that the Indians won their first American League pennant in 28 years. When they also beat the Boston Braves in the World Series it was the signal for Bill Veeck to throw a party.

On the triumphant train ride from Boston to Cleveland, Veeck, normally a careful drinker, broke a rule and got tipsy enough to start squirting champagne at his players. They grabbed bottles and began squirting back. When one woman got her dress spoiled Veeck ordered: “Buy her a new $250 one.” After 20 cases of champagne and ten cases of bubble ink were gone, he took a look at his wine-soaked ballplayers and ordered new suits for them all. “Greatest guy in the world,” everybody said.

The 1948 finale was Bill Veeck’s greatest moment. He had conquered Cleveland and he was anxious to move on. All through 1949, while the team played indifferent ball, talk of the sale of the Indians bubbled on a back burner. Last week Veeck sold his Indians for an estimated $2,200,000 to a group of Cleveland businessmen headed by Insurance Executive Ellis Ryan. The sum was about $1,000,900 more than Veeck and his partners had paid for the club. Said Bill Veeck, when asked what major-league city he was planning to invade next: “I’m not even worrying now about getting back into the baseball business.” But nobody thought that Bill Veeck, even with his share of the capital gains, could stay away very long.