Bill Veeck Read Online Free

that Bill Veeck was telling the truth—not only on the Phillies story but also on other matters of substance. In dozens of interviews conducted forthis book, I asked again and again if those who knew him had ever heard Veeck tell a lie or suspected that he was untruthful.
    In not one interview I conducted with many who knew him did anyone say that he lied about anything. Again and again I pressed the point because of the SABR allegations, and got virtually the same response—Veeck was a storyteller who could exaggerate, especially in stories of self-deprecation, but never about anything of significance. In fact, Veeck’s frankness and truthfulness often got him into hot water. Greg Veeck said that his father was “not capable of a lie” and that while he is not familiar with the details of the debate, he believed that “his rendition of it was accurate.” 10
    A few points about Veeck’s 1942 attempt to buy the Phillies:
    1. There is no question that it was widely rumored and widely repeated that Veeck was involved in some kind of attempt to buy the Phillies. His name is repeated again and again in the context of taking over the team. It shows up as early as the October 22, 1942, issue of
The Sporting News
(where he was quoted as saying that if the deal had gone through, he would have stayed in Milwaukee and sent Charlie Grimm to Philadelphia to run the team). The rumors and references to Veeck as the failed buyer of the Phils continued into 1943 and beyond. On March 8, “the Old Scout,” the pseudonym of Herb Goren of the
New York Sun
, wrote in a profile of Veeck: “He was mentioned as one of the prospective buyers of the Phils, but it is doubtful if his sense of humor could have stood the strain.” An article in the September 7, 1947, issue of
Look
by Ray Grody of the
Milwaukee Sentinel
states that Veeck turned down an offer to head the Phillies the previous year because he was “having too much fun in Milwaukee.” 11
    2. At the time of Bill Veeck’s death in 1986, Jerome Holtzman of the
Chicago Tribune
interviewed John Carmichael, the former sports columnist for the
Chicago Daily News
, about Veeck. Carmichael, then eighty-three, was an old friend of the elder Veeck and then of his son. He told Holtzman that he had run into Veeck in Chicago trying to raise money to buy the Phils and that Veeck intended to staff the club with Negro leaguers. Both Carmichael and Holtzman were reporters with strong credentials—both received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing from the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Holtzman served as officialhistorian to Major League Baseball from 1999 until his death in 2008. 12
    3. As Tygiel and others showed, Veeck had discussed the purchase of the Phillies many years before
Veeck—as in Wreck
was published with writers whose reputations were unassailable. As reported earlier, the first mention of the deal by Veeck that appeared in print was in the “Heard in the Press Box” section of the September 1948 issue of
Baseball Digest
, where he is quoted as saying he had not thought about buying the Phillies until he read in the papers that he was rumored to be interested in the ailing franchise and that he was one of the likely buyers. He explained that he had a leading promoter of Negro baseball compile a list of Negro All-Stars, who he had planned to recruit, train, and spring on the world on Opening Day 1943. “What could they have done,” Veeck asked. “They would have had to play my team or forfeit the game.” The column on the purchase of the Phillies was written by the magazine’s editor, Herbert F. Simons, an old Chicago newspaperman who, prior to creating
Baseball Digest
in 1942, had worked for the
Chicago Journal
,
Chicago Tribune
, and
Chicago Times
, for which he had covered baseball. He had been a close associate of the elder Veeck as a reporter and then reported