Bill Veeck (25 page)

Paradoxically, as various reporters observed, Veeck was taking strong criticism from ball clubs that happily deposited the big visiting-team checks that he provided through his progressive operation of the Indians. “He's making them all rich with the big crowds the Indians are drawing everywhere,” wrote Shirley Povich of the
Washington Post
.
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More than this, club owners feared that Paige's immense following in the black community would bring more blacks to major-league games, thereby diluting their support of the Negro league teams that rented stadiums when the home teams were away. The demise of the Negro leagues would cost owners dearly; rental to Negro teams was worth as much as $100,000 a year to owners such as Calvin Griffith in Washington.

The loudest blast came from J. G. Taylor Spink, publisher of
The Sporting News
, who blistered Veeck for signing the “old man,” terming it purely a publicity stunt. “To bring in a pitching ‘rookie' of Paige's age casts a reflection on the entire scheme of operations in the major leagues. To sign a hurler of Paige's age is to demean the standards of baseball in the big circuits,” Spink ranted, suggesting that American League president William Harridge void the contract. “If Paige were white,” Spink went on, “he would not have drawn a second thought from Veeck.”
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To which Veeck responded “If Satch were white, of course, he would have been in the majors twenty-five years earlier.”
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Ironically, a week after Veeck had signed Larry Doby in 1947, an editorial in
The Sporting News
had proclaimed an end to racial problems in organized baseball. “Just so long as there was a Negro ball player in the National League—Jackie Robinson, with Brooklyn—and none in the American League, there was a Negro question in the majors. Now that the Cleveland club has placed Larry Doby, a first baseman acquired from the Newark team of the Negro National League, on its roster, the race matter no longer is an official perplexity. It no longer exists insofar as Organized Baseball administration is concerned.” Now the Spink tirade suggested a new theme—one that argued against the signing of blacks from the excluded generation, as they might prove they should have been playing in the majors all along. Ric Roberts of the
Pittsburgh Courier
wrote an open letter to Spink pointing out
that other “old men” had signed such contracts and it was seen as proof of their superiority. Ty Cobb, for example, was signed at forty by Connie Mack, and Cy Young got a fresh start with the Indians at the age of forty-two after leaving Boston. Roberts implored Spink to “give Paige his hour of triumph; let the thronging thousands see him in the plush-lined, gold plated backdrop of the majors.”
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Lou Boudreau would later put the issue into perspective: “A lot of people complained that Veeck was just up to his old publicity tricks, that he knew Paige was too old to be a winning major league pitcher, and that he was just bent on exploiting Satch's name for a few more dollars at the gate. Such was not the case. Bill signed Paige because we needed another pitcher, preferably one with sharp control who could be of service as a relief man and a spot starter. Satchel was signed for what he could do, not for what he could draw.”
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Paige's first pitching assignment came on July 9 when he threw two scoreless innings in relief in a loss to the St. Louis Browns. Six days later, on July 15, he was credited with his first major-league victory when he held the Philadelphia Athletics scoreless for three and a third innings after replacing Bob Lemon in the second game of a twinight doubleheader. The Indians rallied for four runs to win the game.

On August 3 Paige made his first major-league start in Cleveland, pitching seven innings for the win as the Indians beat the Washington Senators 5–3.
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The victory moved the Indians into a four-team tie for first place.
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Images of Veeck and Paige together appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country, and they seemed to be totally at ease with each other. Paige called Veeck “Burrhead” and Veeck called Paige “Leroy,” just as he insisted on calling Doby “Lawrence.”

Immediately after the controversial signing of Paige, Veeck was embroiled in defending a highly unpopular decision made by Bob Feller. On the eve of the July 13 All-Star Game at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, Feller, who had not shown up for the All-Star Game in Chicago the year before because of an aching back, again declined the invitation, this time because he had pitched three innings the day before. Veeck promptly accepted the blame,
pointing out that Feller's first duty was to Cleveland and Cleveland's fans, since from where Veeck sat, it looked as if the Indians were going to be in the championship race all the way. A friend cautioned Veeck that he should not have taken the blame for Feller's “callousness or stupidity or whatever you choose to call it. But back off. What you've heard so far is only the beginning and there is no reason for you to be caught up in the jam.”
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Bucky Harris, the Yankees manager and the American League's manager for the All-Star Game, denounced Feller and suggested he should be banned from all future All-Star Games. But the real anger came from Feller's fellow players. The Cincinnati Reds held a meeting and asked the commissioner to take disciplinary action against any future player who balked at All-Star participation. Dixie Walker, National League player representative, spoke for many when he said: “I can't see how any player selected for the All-Star game by either the fans or the managers can fail to look on this selection as an honor. I also feel that since the club owners have been good enough to give us this opportunity to raise money for our pension fund, the least we can do is to show our gratitude by making it the best game we possibly can. After all, it's our game and if we don't do our best for it, we don't deserve to have it.” When his fellow owners chimed in with their outrage, Veeck quietly admitted his mistake in covering for Feller.
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Despite this, Feller remained away from St Louis, while Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Hal Newhouser, the Tigers great pitcher, all were in uniform, despite being injured.
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The August 8, 1948, doubleheader sweep of the Yankees augured well, and displayed Boudreau's flair for the dramatic. Boudreau had been badly banged up a few days earlier in a collision at second base with Gil Coan of the Senators, damaging his shoulder, knee, ankle, and thumb, and was on the bench as the doubleheader began. In the seventh inning of the first game, Cleveland trailed, 6–4. With the bases loaded and two out, the Yanks
brought in their ace reliever, Joe Page. Boudreau called his own number, hobbling to the plate to pinch-hit for Thurman Tucker. On Page's second pitch he drilled a single through the box past the diving shortstop, Phil Rizzuto, to drive in two runs and tie the score. Bob Yonkers of the
Cleveland Press
described the scene as bedlam as Boudreau danced happily on first. The reporter became so choked up he could not cheer while other reporters were “a-whooping and a-clappin and pounding each other on the back.” The unwritten rule that there was no cheering in the press box had been ignored, Yonkers explained, because they had just experienced “the thrill of a lifetime.” The Indians won both games with the help of three home runs from Eddie Robinson.

On August 13, Paige pitched before a standing-room-only crowd at Comiskey Park. The official attendance was 50,013, but Veeck estimated another 20,000 got in without paying and more than 15,000 more were turned away. “It was an incredible sight. People were coming in around the gates, over them, under them, milling around,” wrote Veeck years later. Veeck and his party never made it to their seats, which were occupied by heavyweight champion Joe Louis. According to the
Baltimore Afro-American
, demands for ushers to remove intruders were so numerous that in due course “these uniformed workers resorted to hiding to avoid being bothered.”
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Before the largest night crowd to that point in the history of baseball, Paige threw a complete game, beating the Chicago White Sox 5–0. After the game, Veeck sent a telegram to Spink that said, “PAIGE PITCHING. NO RUNS. THREE HITS. HE DEFINITELY IS IN LINE FOR THE
SPORTING NEWS
‘ROOKIE OF THE YEAR' AWARD.”

On August 20, Paige's start against the last-place Chicago White Sox attracted 78,382 to Cleveland Stadium, breaking his recent record for the largest night game crowd in major-league history. Satch pitched a 1–0 three-hitter for his second shutout, thereby running his scoreless streak to twenty-three and a third innings. After the win Joe Reichler of the Associated Press declared, “No matter what President Bill Veeck gave Satchel Paige … he would be a bargain at twice the price.” Reichler pointed out that in his first three starts in the majors Paige had drawn a total of 201,829 paying customers.
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The game was also the Tribe's eighth straight win and its fourth straight shutout, tying the American League record set by the Yankees in 1903 and 1932. Despite such dramatic wins during the late summer and the immense fan support, there were those who saw the Indians as a bubble that would soon burst. Al Simmons, the Philadelphia Athletics coach, told anyone who would listen: “Don't worry about the Indians. They'll choke up. They always do.”
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As if on cue, after the Paige game the Indians lost three straight, then won four, and after all the traditional Labor Day doubleheaders had been played, the Indians had fallen four and a half games out of first, though they were still in contention.

The season until then had been filled with melodrama and a sense that it had somehow been scripted by someone with even more imagination than Veeck. September would exceed whatever came before. Rather than the Indians folding, Simmons's Athletics faded out of contention, leaving the race to the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians.

Off-field drama opened the month. On September 8 Harry Grabiner collapsed in his office, and his condition was deemed serious enough that he was taken to his summer home, a farm in Allegon, Michigan, to recover. It was a terrible blow to Veeck, who so wanted the man he had known and admired since childhood to see this season play to its finale.

Reversing their slide around Labor Day, the Indians started a new streak, and on Sunday the twelfth the team won its seventh game in a row from the hapless St. Louis Browns in the first game of a doubleheader. The second game ended in a 3–3 tie, called because of darkness. The next day was an open date for both clubs, so the Browns stayed in town to play a makeup game.

Journeyman and spot starter Don Black was slated to pitch for the Indians. However, he was even more in the news that day because an article entitled “Don Black's Greatest Victory” had appeared the day before in the
American Weekly
, a Sunday magazine supplement to the Hearst newspapers with a circulation in the millions. Black's reputation as a former alcoholic was well known, but the article focused on his struggle to overcome his addiction and his debt to Alcoholics Anonymous. As Gordon Cobbledick explained in his profile, “Black has voluntarily renounced his anonymity, which is one of the foundation stones of AA, in order to publicize the job that the organization can do for the thousands who are afflicted as he was.” The public now knew that Veeck had convinced Black to join AA in 1946, Black's first year with the Indians, when his baseball career appeared to be skidding to a boozy end. When Black's father died in California, Veeck made sure that local AA people were on hand to support Black in a time of sadness. In early 1947, Black lost a game by walking the winning run across the plate. Veeck somehow arranged on short notice to have two of Black's AA buddies in the clubhouse when he came off the field.
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Black pitched two strong innings to begin the game on September 13. In the bottom half of the second he batted against Bill “Lefty” Kennedy, who had been an Indian earlier in the season before being traded. Black took a vicious swing at Kennedy's second pitch and fouled it back into the stands. He staggered slightly as he finished the swing, then walked away from the plate and turned in a small circle in back of plate umpire Bill Summers. An odd look crossed his face as he turned to Summers and asked, “My God, Bill, what happened?”

He then sagged and crumpled to a kneeling position. Summers bent over and asked, “What's wrong, Don?”

“It started on that last pitch to Pellagrini.”

Eddie Pellagrini, the Browns shortstop, had taken a snapping curveball for a third strike to close out the top of the inning. According to eyewitness Franklin Lewis of the
Cleveland Press
, “The physical effort expended on that pitch, plus the full-bodied swing at the plate a few minutes later, snapped an aneurysm.”

A short time later Black lapsed into a coma and was rushed to the hospital. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and his condition was deemed critical—and would be for days to come. His immediate chances for survival were posted at fifty-fifty.
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The Indians lost that game to the Browns, which along with a 6–5 loss the next day to the Yankees put them three and a half games out of first place, prompting Harry Jones of the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
to state that the team's pennant prospects were “dimmed to a faint flicker.”

The fifteenth was an off day, but on September 16 Veeck announced that he would hold Don Black Night on the twenty-second. He had convinced the American League president and Red Sox executives to switch their afternoon game to the evening. Veeck pledged that the Indians share of the gate would go to the ailing Black. No passes or complimentary tickets would be allowed, and the press corps agreed in advance to pay for their own tickets. “I wanted to do this in the game with the Red Sox,” Veeck announced, “This way the fans will be donating to a worthy cause and get the finest attraction we have left.”