Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck
William Louis "Bill" Veeck, Jr., also known as "Sport Shirt Bill", was a native of Chicago, Illinois, and a franchise owner and promoter in Major League Baseball. Veeck was at various times the owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox. As owner and team president of the Indians in 1947, Veeck signed Larry Doby, thus beginning the integration of the American League. Veeck was the last owner to purchase a baseball franchise without an independent...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth9 February 1914
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Though it is a team game by definition, it is actually a series of loosely connected individual efforts.
I was in the game for love. After all, where else can an old-timer with one leg, who can't hear or see, live like a king while doing the only thing I wanted to do?
The season starts too early and finishes too late and there are too many games in between.
Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too?
This is a game to be savored, not gulped. There's time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.
To give one can of beer to a thousand people is not nearly as much fun as to give 1,000 cans of beer to one guy. You give a thousand people a can of beer and each of them will drink it, smack his lips and go back to watching the game. You give 1,000 cans to one guy, and there is always the outside possibility that 50,000 people will talk about it.
We lived and died on every pitch, ... This was the most exciting year, and, let me tell you, I have seen a lot of teams.
McGraw had been a great friend of my father's in the days when McGraw was managing the New York Giants and my daddy was president of the Chicago Cubs.
I did my best to look ashamed of myself.
Hating the Yankees isn't part of my act. It is one of those exquisite times when life and art are in perfect conjunction.
I try not to kid myself. You know, I don't mind romancing someone else, but to fool yourself is pretty devastating and dangerous.
What can I do, I asked myself, that is so spectacular that no one will be able to say he had seen it before? The answer was perfectly obvious. I would send a midget up to bat.
The Falstaff people, romantics all, went for it. They were so anxious to find out what I was going to do that they could hardly bear to wait out the two weeks. I was rather anxious to find out what I was going to do, too.
Three strikes, you're out. I don't care if you hire Edward Bennett Williams to defend you; three strikes, you're still out. Baseball is an island of stability in an unstable world.