Bill Veeck (67 page)

21
. Joint Meeting Minutes, December 3, 1943, 5–6.

22
. Ibid.

23
. Later secondhand accounts of this meeting put words in Robeson's mouth that are not part of the transcript and are of a significantly stronger nature: “The time has come when you must change your attitude toward Negroes…. Because baseball is a national game, it is up to baseball to see that discrimination does not become an American pattern. And it should do this year.”
New York Times
, May 2, 1987.

24
. Joint Meeting Minutes, December 3, 1943, 84.

25
. Ibid., 84–87.

26
.
New York Times
, December 4, 1943.

27
. Both articles appear in their entirety in the
New York
Amsterdam News
, December 11, 1943.

28
.
New York
Amsterdam News
, December 11, 1943.

29
.
Sporting News
, February 17, 1944.

30
. Jack Brickhouse,
Thanks for Listening
(South Bend, IN: Diamond Communications, 1996), 11.

31
.
Leatherneck
, April 1944, 49.

32
.
Milwaukee Sentinel
, February 13, 1944.

33
.
Leatherneck
, April 1944, 49.

34
. International News Service dispatch on April 14 by John R. Henry. The lowdown came from Staff Sgt. Gordon D. Marston, Marine Corps war correspondent from Stoneham, Massachusetts. The article was carried in many newspapers, including the
Milwaukee Journal
, where it ran with an editor's note appended in italics: “
Charlie Grimm, like you, probably would like to get at least a peek at the two other shortstops he's supposed to have.”
Something was lost in the secondhand reporting in
Stars and Stripes
and elsewhere, suggesting that Veeck had acquired shortstops without Grimm's knowledge.
Stars and Stripes
, June 21, 1944.

35
. Roscoe C. Torrance,
Torchy
(Mission Hill, SD: Dakota Homestead, 1988), 99–101.

36
. Harry A. Gailey,
Bougainville, 1943–1945: The Forgotten Campaign
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 129.

37
.
Sporting News
, November 2, 1944, 11. This article carries Veeck's byline (Pfc. Bill Veeck, USMC) as told to S/Sgt. Dick Hanna, Marine Corp Combat Correspondent, with a dateline “U.S. Naval Hospital, Oakland, Calif.”

38
. Interview with Donald L. Fordham, July 13, 2010;
Monterey Peninsula Herald
, January 15, 1986. Fordham and Veeck became lifelong friends.

39
.
Milwaukee Journal
, October 3, 1944.

40
.
Milwaukee Journal
, July 22, 1945.

41
.
Baltimore Sun
, May 7, 1944.

42
.
Sporting News
, November 2, 1944.

43
. Robert Tanzilo, “Stengel Brewed Up a Title—Brewers Job Was Wrecked by Veeck,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, July 5, 1993.

44
. Joseph Durso,
Casey: The Life and Legend of Charles Casey Stengle
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967), viii.

45
.
Milwaukee Journal
, September 20, 1944.

46
.
Stars and Stripes
(London), October 25, 1944, 3.

47
.
Sporting News
, December 21, 1944;
Milwaukee Sentinel
, August 26, 1945.

48
.
Sporting News
, December 21, 1944.

49
.
Milwaukee Journal
, November 30, 1944.

50
.
New York Times
, December 13, 1944, 27.

51
.
Sporting News
, December 21, 1944.

52
. USMC Personnel Record, Veeck, William L., gathered from several documents in the file;
Sporting News
, January 25, 1945.

53
.
Bill Veeck Show
, Recorded Sound Reference Center, Library of Congress, audio file LPA50284.

54
.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, magazine section, October 8, 1978, 13.

55
.
Milwaukee Journal
, January 21, 1945.

56
. USMC Personnel Record, Veeck, William L., Report of Medical Survey: 10 July, 1945.

57
.
Milwaukee Sentinel
, August 22, 1945.

58
.
Milwaukee Journal
, September 19, 1945, 30.

59
. Roy P. Drachman,
Just Memories
(Tucson, 1979), extracted from online version of the book,
http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/drachman/1003.html
.

1
.
Chicago Tribune
, April 29, 1945; May 3, 1945.

2
. Ibid., October 3, 1945.

3
. AP,
Montreal Gazette
, October 25, 1945, 16.

4
. AP,
Ottawa Citizen
, October 26, 1945, 11;
Spalding Guide
, 1946.

5
.
Sporting News
, November 1, 1945.

6
.
Chicago Tribune
, October 28, 1945.

7
. Interview with Fred Krehbiel, June 3, 2010.

8
.
Milwaukee Journal
, November 24, 1945;
Sporting News
, November 22, 1945.

9
.
Milwaukee Journal
, January 4, 1946, 30.

10
. Bill Veeck with Edward Linn,
Veeck—as in Wreck
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), 81.

11
.
Miami News
, April 16, 1946, 21.

12
. Warren Brown in
Sportsfolio
, April 1949.

13
.
Milwaukee Journal
, May 24, 1946.

14
.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, June 23, 1946, 91; Russell J. Schneider,
The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 55, 350.

15
.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, June 20, 1946, 1.

16
. James Odenkirk,
Plain Dealing: A Biography of Gordon Cobbledick
(Tempe: Spider-Naps Publications, 1990), 142;
Chicago Tribune
, June 21, 1946, 29.

17
. Burt Solomon,
Baseball Timeline
(New York: Avon, 1997), 456.

18
.
Time
, July 1, 1946.

19
.
Miami News
, June 24, 1946.

20
.
Milwaukee Journal
, August 27, 1947.

21
. Tommy Devine, “Boy from the Bleachers,”
Pic: The Magazine for Young Men
, April 1947.

22
.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, July 18, 1946, 15.

23
. Interview with Chris Axelrod, January 30, 2009.

24
. James Hegan interview with William Marshall, for the University of Kentucky Libraries, A. B. “Happy” Chandler Oral History Project, May 15, 1979.

25
. Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98.

26
.
Chicago Tribune
, July 10, 1946, 27.

27
.
New York Times
, March 14, 1971.

28
. Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98, no. 136.

29
.
Berkeley Daily Gazette
, July 19, 1946, 6.

30
.
Baseball Digest
, October, 1988, p. 78

31
.
Baltimore Afro-American
, September 14, 1946; Facebook communication with George W. Case III, March 15, 2011.

32
. Veeck with Linn,
Veeck—as in Wreck
, 86.

33
. Schneider,
Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia
, 57.

34
.
Baseball Magazine
, September 1946, 331.

35
.
New York Times
, October 3, 1948, S6.

36
.
New York Times
, “Gordon, Overlooked Yankee, Gets His Due,” December 13, 2008.

37
.
Milwaukee Journal
, February 7, 1955. The AP's Gayle Talbot, writing a few days after Reynolds's retirement, called it the “ideal trade.”

38
.
New York Times
, October 31, 1936.

39
.
Cleveland Press
, July 31, 1969. The call to Gibbons was used more than twenty years later by Bob August of the
Press
to open a profile of Veeck and to comment: “A long list of adjectives can be used to describe Veeck, and one that leaps to mind is ‘irrepressible.' Human spirits are not often lighted by such stubborn flames.”

40
.
Milwaukee Journal
, November 3, 1946.

41
. Devine, “Boy from the Bleachers.”

42
. The picture appeared in the
Miami News
, December 5, 1946, 7.

43
.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, June 28, 1998, A1.

44
.
Chicago Tribune
, February 2, 1947;
Sport Life
, July 1949, 14.

45
.
New York Times
, February 2, 1947, S2.

46
. Pat Williams interviews, 1997–98, no. 137.

47
. AP,
Tuscaloosa News
, April 15, 1947.

1
.
Call and Post
, July 27, 1946.

2
. Dandridge reported on several occasions that Veeck had given him a chance to be first; see Robert Peterson,
Only the Ball Was White
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970); T. Nicholas Dawidoff, “Big Call from the Hall: Negro Leaguer Ray Dandridge Hears from Cooperstown,”
Sports Illustrated
, July 6, 1987; Lyle Spencer interview with Dandridge,
New York Post
, July 11, 1988. The offer from Veeck is also presented in James A. Riley,
Dandy, Day, and the Devil
(Cocoa, FL: TK Publishers, 1987), 8. Riley was with Dandridge during the
Sports Illustrated
interview and attests to Dandridge's veracity in this matter. Interview with Riley. Several online sources claim that Veeck's offer was made after Robinson and Doby came up to the majors, but these are unverified.

3
.
Call and Post
, July 5, 1947, 1A; July 12, 1947, 4B.

4
. Joseph Thomas Moore,
Pride Against Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby
(New York: Greenwood, 1988), 40.

5
. Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, July 12, 1947; Al Dunmore, “Cleveland Owner Kept His Word,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, July 12, 1947; “Larry Doby, Ace Negro Infielder, Signs Contract with Cleveland,”
New York Times
, July 4, 1947.

6
. Bob Luke,
The Baltimore Elite Giants: Sport and Society in the Age of Negro League Baseball
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 138.

7
. Cynthia J. Wilber,
For the Love of the Game
(New York: William Morrow, 1992), 350.

8
. David Maraniss in the
Washington Post
, July 8, 1997.

9
. Joel Zoss and John Stewart Bowman,
Diamonds in the Rough: The Untold History of Baseball
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 101.

10
. Larry Doby interview with Tom Harris, February 18, 1994.

11
. Effa Manley and Leon Herbert Hardwick,
Negro Baseball … Before Integration
, ed. Robert Cvornyek (Haworth, NJ: St. Johann, 2006), 74–76.

12
. Rickey commented, “There is no negro league as such as far as I am concerned. Negro baseball is in the zone of a racket” (
Palm Beach Post
, October 25, 1945, 10). Larry Doby interview with William J. Marshall for the University of Kentucky Libraries, A. B. “Happy” Chandler Oral History Project, November 15, 1979. Seven weeks later Rickey signed Dan Bankhead of the Memphis Red Sox to a contract but had to pay for the privilege—with the new player contracts containing a reserve clause and the deal coming in the middle of the season, there could be no question but that Bankhead was under contract to the Red Sox, so Rickey paid B. B. Martin, general manager of the Memphis Red Sox, $15,000. The terms were exactly the same as they had been for Doby: $10,000 upon signing the contract on August 23 and another $5,000 if the Dodgers kept Bankhead for more than a month, which they did. Branch Rickey Papers, Box 5, Folder 3, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

13
. Moore,
Pride Against Prejudice
, 41; interview with Monte Irvin, February 21, 2008.

14
. Doby interview with Marshall, November 15, 1979, 3–41.

15
. Ira Berkow in the
New York Times
, February 23, 1997.

16
.
Washington Post
, July 12, 1947. “Now it sort of dawned on me after the game was over and after I got back to the hotel by myself. When you're sitting there by yourself there's a lot of things go through your mind.”

17
. Bill Veeck interview with Jules Tygiel, August 11, 1980, National Baseball Library.

18
.
New York Times
, July 4, 1947; “Career of Baseball Star Larry Doby, Who Died Yesterday,” National Public Radio,
Morning Edition
, June 19, 2003.

19
.
Chicago Defender
, December 3, 1949.

20
. Interview with Wyonella Smith, March 19, 2011.

21
. Interview with Robert Ames Alden, April 28, 2008.

22
. Bill Veeck interview with William J. Marshall for the University of Kentucky Libraries, A. B. “Happy” Chandler Oral History Project, February 23, 1977, tape 1, side 2.