Bill Veeck (26 page)

At this time Veeck boldly reserved a World Series headquarters at a downtown hotel and began making arrangements for the extra press, causing some to wonder if he was not jinxing the team, or, in the parlance of the time, “hanging a whammy around its neck.” C. M. Gibbs of the
Baltimore Sun
compared Veeck's early plans for the World Series with those of the 1938 Pirates, who, enjoying a seven-game lead on September 1, brought in carloads of lumber to build field boxes and extra seats for the World Series, only to see the lead evaporate.
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The Indians won the game on the sixteenth against the Washington Senators with a first-inning Larry Doby grand slam. “Well, it may only take a minor miracle now,” said Veeck after the game. It put the Indians two and a half games behind the Red Sox. They won again on the seventeenth with Feller fanning eleven, and once more on the eighteenth, beating the Senators 10–1 to complete a three-game sweep. The Philadelphia Athletics came to town for a Sunday doubleheader on the nineteenth, and the Indians took
both games; Doby won the first with a ninth-inning two-run homer, and Boudreau hit two home runs to complete the double victory. With 75,382 paying fans, the total for home attendance was 2,300,893, eclipsing the record held by the 1946 Yankees. Meanwhile, the Red Sox dropped both games of their doubleheader against the Tigers, and the Indians were now a half game behind the Red Sox.

Don Black Night was held in Cleveland Stadium on the twenty-second with the entire gate going to the stricken pitcher. Black's teammates made a pre-game show of solidarity by paying their way into the game and going through the turnstiles in uniform—providing a unique photo opportunity.

While the Red Sox brass had agreed to the night game, this rankled Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy, who knew they would be facing Feller and much preferred to do so in the daylight. The Red Sox had offered to put up part of their share of the night's take, but Veeck said this was something for the Cleveland fans to do on their own.

On the eve of the Don Black game an article in the
Cleveland Press
featured what it termed the “Whammy Supreme,” a manufactured good-luck charm in the shape of a pennant reading “Cleveland Indians—American League Champions, World Series 1948.” Ronald Mazur of the State Novelty Co. had come up with the idea and quickly manufactured 50,000 of them, which were available at local stores and on sale at the stadium in time for the big game with Boston.
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Feller held the Red Sox hitless through six innings, and the Indians beat Boston 5–2 in a game that had already been nicknamed “the big one.” Ken Keltner's first-inning three-run homer was the margin of victory. The fans “simply went nuts … delirious is too mild a term to describe them.” The gleeful mob was egged on by Veeck, who was in his glory. Effusively he greeted the crowd and thanked them publicly after the game was over. Fireworks were ignited as the fans were leaving the stadium, blazing the words GOOD LUCK DON. The game moved Cleveland into a tie for first place with Boston, with the Yankees just a half game back. Receipts from the great crowd of 76,772 went to Black, netting him more than $40,000.

As if Don Black Night had not already had an effect on the team and its fans, at this critical point in the race Veeck made what Warren Brown of the
Chicago Herald-American
regarded as his “master psychological stroke of the entire season.” The White Sox were scheduled to be in town on September 28, and Veeck announced that it would be Good Old Joe Earley Night.

Joe Earley was a thirty-four-year old World War II veteran from Lakewood,
Ohio, and a security guard at a Chevrolet plant who had written a facetious letter to the editor of the
Cleveland Press
complaining that too many special “days” or “nights” honored ballplayers past and present. He argued that athletes got enough attention as it was, and the average fan, who spent his hard-earned money to support those athletes and their teams, deserved more respect. “Now they want a ‘Bill Veeck Night,'” wrote Earley. “It's a good idea, but here's another suggestion. Let's have a ‘Joe Earley Night.' I pay my rent and my landlord spends it on things that keep business stimulated. I keep the gas station attendant in business by buying gas regularly. I keep the milkman in clover by buying milk. He uses trucks and tires and as a result big industry is kept going. The paper boy delivers the paper, wears out a pair of shoes occasionally and the shoemaker wins…. A lot of people depend on me (and you) so let us all get together, and send in your contributions for that new car for ‘Good Old Joe Earley Night.'”
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The idea was a gift to Veeck, who immediately went to work on what
Life
magazine termed “a night to end all nights.” His Indians might have been in a tense pennant race, but the master of ceremonies on Good Old Joe Earley Night was Veeck himself, as zany in this production as he had ever been in Milwaukee. “There in the presence of a near capacity crowd, and his own ball players, Veeck let the world know that the pressure hadn't got him down,” Warren Brown wrote. “He was himself. His squad would have had to be dull witted indeed, not to have taken the hint. If the boss saw no reason to show strain of the furious race, why should they?”
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As the fans streamed into the big ballpark on the shore of Lake Erie, they were greeted by team officials offering special favors for the female fans in attendance, because in addition to it being Joe Earley Night, Veeck had made it Princess Aloha Orchid Night. Veeck had chartered a plane, equipped with air-conditioning, to fly in 20,000 Princess Aloha orchids from the Hawaiian islands along with the florist who had provided them and a young Hawaiian woman who, dressed in a grass skirt, helped pass out the precious flowers. The florist pointed out a recent survey that showed only two in ten women ever received orchids. The first 20,000 female fans to enter Municipal Stadium that night received one.
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After most of the fans had taken their seats, Veeck emerged on the field and grabbed a microphone, and while the puzzled White Sox looked on from their dugout, he picked fans at random and presented them with such thoughtful gifts as fifty-pound blocks of ice, live turkeys, guinea pigs, white
rabbits, and bushel baskets of apples, peaches, and tomatoes. One man was presented with three stepladders, another with a sow and her piglets.

Finally, Joe Earley, looking like a Hollywood leading man of his era, was escorted onto the diamond with his wife. The ultimate tribute to the average fan was under way. Veeck built the crowd into frenzy as he spoke of Earley's letter and the inspiration for the special night. He announced that the Indians were rewarding Earley with a brand-new house, built in “early American architecture.” With a wave of Veeck's hand, a flatbed truck rolled in from the outfield carrying a dilapidated outhouse. The crowd roared. Then Earley was told that he was being presented with a car, and with that a rickety Model T Ford rolled out onto the diamond. It was a tricked-up circus car filled with young female models who piled out on command. The bumpers fell off the car when the horn was honked. More gifts followed, some of them whimsical, including livestock and a case of Wheaties, and some of them generous—a truck filled with appliances donated by Cleveland business owners, and, most delightful for Mr. Earley, a brand-new 1949 yellow Ford convertible. Veeck gave the Earleys luggage, books, clothes, and a cocker spaniel. Joe, with a wide grin on his face, also received a gold lifetime pass entitling him to entry to any American League ballpark.
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After the livestock had been corralled and Joe Earley and everybody else had left the field, the Indians picked up an 11–0 win on Gene Bearden's eighteenth victory. To the delight of Veeck and his faithful, the Red Sox and Yankees both lost, and the Indians pushed their lead to two games, with five games left in the season.
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Working on two days' rest, Feller picked up his nineteenth win pitching the Indians to a 5–2 victory over the White Sox the next day. The Yankees and Red Sox also posted wins. The Indians two-game lead was cut to one with a loss, but on the final Saturday, behind the pitching of Gene Bearden, Cleveland beat the Tigers to clinch at least a tie, and the Red Sox knocked out the Yankees. Cleveland was one game in front of Boston.

“There are two people I want at the World Series, more perhaps than anyone else in the world. One is ‘Boots' Weber, and the other is Charlie Grimm,”
Veeck told Warren Brown with the pennant not yet secured. When Veeck called Weber, a resident of California since his retirement from the Cubs and baseball, he told Veeck he had already booked a ticket to come east for the World Series.
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On Sunday, the last day of the season, Feller was named to pitch against the Tigers. A victory and the Indians were in. It was Veeck Day at the stadium, and the owner accepted congratulations before the game from a committee including Mayor Thomas Burke and the city's newest celebrity, Joe Earley. The Indians share of the gate, $55,000, was to go to the Community Fund, the predecessor of the United Way.
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Feller, who needed one more victory to join the 20-game ranks once more, was as ready as his tired arm would permit. Before another more-than-capacity crowd, Veeck spoke in the pre-game ceremony, concluding: “I hope everyone will leave the stadium as happy as they are now.” But it was not to be. Hal Newhouser of the Tigers bested Feller, who was knocked out of the box in the third inning. The Indians were never in the ball game, losing 7–1 as the scoreboard in center field showed the Red Sox had beaten the Yankees again. As one paper put it, “The gay victory polka slowed down to a dirge.”

The American League race thus ended in a flat-footed tie, with Cleveland and Boston posting identical 96–58 records. The pennant would be decided by a one-game playoff the next day, the first time in the league's history overtime had been needed. A flip of the coin determined that it would take place at Boston's Fenway Park.

As the glum Cleveland crowd filed out of the huge stadium, the Indians held an emergency private meeting in their clubhouse to decide who would pitch the next day. Boudreau wanted to share his pitching plans with the team and give them a chance to voice their opinion. “This game we're going to play tomorrow means as much to you men as individuals as it does to me,” he said. Then he told them he had decided upon Bearden. “He's the best pitcher we have right now,” he said, “better than Feller and better than Bob Lemon and better than Steve Gromek.” Finally he told his club that, despite the fact that lefties typically fared poorly in Fenway Park, he didn't think the Red Sox would be able to pull Bearden's knuckleball against the famed left-field wall.
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Some discussion ensued, and the records of the various pitchers in Fenway were compared. Then Joe Gordon spoke up. “Lou,” he said, “we went along with your choice for 154 ball games and finished in a tie. There's not a man in this room who two weeks ago wouldn't have settled for a tie. I'm sure
we can go along with you for another ball game.” The decision was kept secret even from Veeck and Greenberg.

On the eve of the playoff Veeck found out that the announcers for the World Series on the Mutual Broadcasting network did not include a Cleveland broadcaster. He threatened to put the broadcast booth far out in right field in retaliation. Jimmy Britt of Boston, who had been picked for the broadcast and was beloved by Red Sox fans, declared, “There won't be any World Series in Cleveland this year.”
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The overnight train to Boston the team took was delayed by many stops along the way and did not arrive until shortly before game time. The writers and photographers aboard had concluded that the Indians would send Feller or Bob Lemon to the mound, and the secret held until game time. Boudreau warmed up Lemon, Feller, and Bearden (who was working on one day's rest), maintaining the suspense until the end. The likes of Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky awaited the rookie knuckleballer.

Even before the game started it was an affair of odd angles and ironies. Columnist Bob Considine wrote that the Boston Braves, who had won their first National League pennant since 1914, were rooting for the Indians, since Cleveland Stadium was much larger than Fenway Park and each Braves player would thereby net an extra thousand dollars or so from the much larger gate receipts in Cleveland.
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The number of reporters on hand was believed to be the largest ever for a non–World Series contest, but they had to crawl under police officers mounted on horses to get into the stadium following a rumor that regular season passes would be honored at the press gate, which brought hundreds to jam the narrow entrance.
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A crowd of 33,957 shivering fans jammed Fenway Park, and most of them, in the words of John Drebinger of the
New York Times
, “watched the game in glum silence” as Bearden threw a complete-game masterpiece, giving him his 20-win season.
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Boudreau went four for four with two home runs, Ken Keltner hit a three-run blast, and the Indians won 8–3. As the Indians carried Bearden off the field, Veeck jumped out of his special box and, as one reporter put it, “actually raced” across the field to catch up with the parade. After the game Bearden spotted Veeck, held up a bottle of soda pop, and toasted the boss, pouring its contents on his head.

Veeck, much to his delight, was mocked. “Poor Bill Veeck,” wrote Bob Considine. “The Cleveland owner has been trying to fire Boudreau for lo,
these many years.”
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The feeling in Boston was that Veeck had somehow gained an unfair edge over the Red Sox. The
Boston Herald
's Bill Cunningham suggested that Veeck's ability to get the time of the Don Black benefit game moved into the evening was a “piece of inspired skullduggery.” Months later Cunningham wrote: “Black, fortunately, recovered. The Red Sox never did.” He asked himself if Veeck's staging of Don Black Night was not altogether charitable but “partly hornswoggling.” Cunningham also noted that when the Indians took off to play the Red Sox, they shipped all their spare bats and other paraphernalia directly to Braves Field, not to Fenway, “adding insult to injury.”
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