Bill Veeck: The Second Time Around

 

Bill Veeck had a decades-long baseball career. He was known for bringing a little person up to bat with the sole intention of getting a walk because his strike zone was impossibly small. He was the first big-league owner to put names on the backs of uniforms. He erected a huge center field scoreboard in between the upper decks of Comiskey Park that became known as “The Monster.” “The Monster” exploded with noise and fireworks when a White Sox player hit a home run. He tweaked the baseball establishment with other gimmicks and promotions. Eventually—at least in Chicago—Bill Veeck became known as the man “who saved the Sox.” But Veeck’s latter stint in the White Sox front office didn’t go quite as swimmingly as some might have hoped.

After a losing 1975 season, it appeared that the Chicago White Sox, a charter member of the American League, would move from Chicago to Seattle after a 76-year run. The team had an old ballpark, an eroding fan base, and John Allyn’s Artnell Co. had cash flow problems. (Former White Sox catcher Ed Herrmann would tell this writer, that, on one occasion, three dozen bats had been shipped to the White Sox when six dozen had been expected. According to Herrmann, team president Allyn told his players that “things were a little short.”1)

Veeck, who had first owned the White Sox with CBC Corp. from 1959 through 1961, stepped in with a group of investors to purchase the team and keep the franchise in Chicago. At first, the American League owners told Veeck he had to restructure his offer and finances in order to buy the club.2 For a time, it appeared that the White Sox might still head to Seattle. However, Veeck raised an additional $1.2 million, and the league approved his purchase.3 He was given the keys to Comiskey Park and the franchise.

Veeck’s first move was to try to evoke memories of a better era of White Sox history, by hiring 67-year-old Paul Richards to manage the 1976 club. Richards, a solid baseball man, had managed the White Sox to four winning seasons in the early 1950s, including a 94-60 finish in 1954, part of an incredible string of 17 straight winning seasons, 1951-67. During that run, they managed seven seasons of 90 wins or more, five second place finishes, and—under Veeck’s leadership—won the American League pennant in 1959, their first since the 1919 Black Sox.

To Veeck, there was nothing better than a big crowd at a major league ballpark. For the April 9 opener against Kansas City, a crowd that would total somewhere over 40,000 made its way into Comiskey Park. The early spring day was cool and crisp, but the sun shone like mid-summer. The distinct smell of marijuana emanated from the left-center upper deck.4

About an hour before game time, Veeck walked through the stands down the lower left field corner. Fans left their seats to shake his hand, pat his back, and give him hugs, showing their gratitude.5 They knew Comiskey Park could have sat empty that day.

The opener couldn’t have gone better for the White Sox. They won, 4-0, behind the complete-game, six- hit pitching performance of left-handed knuckleballer Wilbur Wood. The only glitch came in the bottom of the fifth inning when first baseman Jim Spencer hit a two-run homer and “The Monster” malfunctioned, sounding like a car engine failing to turn over. But everything else had gone so well that Veeck would later joke about the fireworks show that didn’t happen, and fans went home happy.6

There was more fun at Comiskey on May 31 when the White Sox played the Texas Rangers. In the home first, the White Sox had the bases loaded with two out. Center fielder Chet Lemon lifted a routine fly ball to medium left. Rangers outfielder Tom Grieve took a couple steps in and then stopped. A dense fog had engulfed the stadium, and with arms helplessly extended, Grieve searched in vain for the ball that hid in the mist.

The outfield had been soaked by some recent rainy and damp weather. When the ball landed, its whiteness sank into the wet, deep green grass without the slightest bounce. The fans saw it, the Rangers infielders finally saw it, but Grieve still hadn’t located it. By the time Grieve finally spotted the ball, the bases had been cleared, and Lemon slid into third with a three-RBI triple. The White Sox won the game, 9-4, and with the help of a nine-game winning streak earlier in the month, stood just three games behind first place Kansas City. Could this team, once thought to be leaving Chicago, now actually contend for the Western Division title?

Well, no. The team’s weak hitting and porous outfield defense were eventually exposed. Furthermore, the sentimental hiring of Richards, who had not acted as a field manager since 1961, turned out to be a public relations debacle. By the end of August, the White Sox had sunk to last place and Chicago Sun-Times beat reporter Joe Goddard wrote that Richards was out of touch with his younger club. A photo accompanying his August 31 story showed Richards huddled in the corner of the dugout with his warm-up jacket zipped up to his neck. He looked lonely and cold.7

The story, mostly documented with anonymous sources, told of Richards acting detached and uninterested. He had stopped taking lineup cards to the umpires, instead letting players do the chore. One time a player noticed that Richards didn’t have a third baseman in the lineup. Richards told the player to pencil himself in.

An incensed Veeck held a news conference to respond to the Goddard story and demanded the anonymous sources come forward.8 None did, and Veeck had to know they wouldn’t. They were anonymous for a reason. If any of these players wanted to play for the White Sox or any other team in 1977, they couldn’t admit they had ratted on their manager. Meanwhile, the Goddard story was never truly discredited.

The final month of the season was a disaster. The White Sox dropped 16 of their last 17. In a three-game series against the Twins, the Sox sold a combined total of 9,762 tickets and were outscored, 22-9, in a Minnesota sweep. They finished last, 251/₂ games behind division-winning Kansas City, and they barely avoided losing 100 games. It was the team’s second worst season since 1950. A baseball season, that had begun with good cheer, newfound hope, and evoked memories of winning campaigns, ended with disgusted fans believing their team had quit on them.

Enter the Rent-a-Player strategy. Since Veeck couldn’t compete with George Steinbrenner or other well-monied owners when it came to signing free agents or keeping star players, he came up with a tactic that he hoped would help in the short run. He would trade a player or players he knew he would not be able to sign, in exchange for another player he knew would not be able to sign. In essence, he was “renting” a player for a season before that player would move on elsewhere.

Veeck began by sending left-handed Terry Forster and future Hall of Famer Rich Gossage to Pittsburgh for power-hitting right fielder Richie Zisk. Then, right before the 1977 season began, slick fielding shortstop Bucky Dent was traded to the Yankees for Oscar Gamble. Because of the strong years Zisk and Gamble put up, the transactions succeeded. But in the long run, they also failed.

With Zisk and Gamble leading the way, the 1977 team became one of the most popular in franchise history. Because of a revamped and suddenly potent offense, the 1977 White Sox became known as the “South Side Hitmen.” No lead was safe against them. One hit led to another and another, and the devastating Hitmen offense annihilated their opposition.

Comiskey Park rocked with noise and emotion that summer. Fans sitting in the left field seats held up banners that read, “Pitch at Risk to Zisk.” The stadium would echo with the refrain from Queen’s “We Will Rock You” during rallies. And fans would cheer loud and long after home runs, demanding that players do “curtain calls.” The home-run hitter felt the obligation to step out of the dugout to tip his hat. By the end of July, the White Sox sat in first place, 51/₂ games ahead of Kansas City and Minnesota.

But despite all the excitement and fun, there were newspaper stories circulating that Zisk and Gamble would not return in 1978. After all, they were “rent-a- players.” (Gamble told this writer that Veeck did make an offer to him but that it didn’t come close to what San Diego would offer.)9

In the end, Kansas City went on a tear during the last two months of the season. The Royals ended up winning 102 games and took their second division title in a row.

 

 

But the Sox fans still loved their Hitmen. After a meaningless 3-2 loss in the final game of the season against Seattle, fans wouldn’t leave Comiskey. They remained in the old stadium for about an hour and a half, wanting to hold onto the memories of 1977. But the dismantling of the team would lead to one of the most infamous incidents in team history: Disco Demolition.

Drawing fans had grown tough as the memories of the Hitmen faded. The dropping attendance only made things worse for the financially strapped franchise. The White Sox were on their way to their sixth losing season of the decade. The front office was looking for innovative ways to draw a crowd. They succeeded on July 12, 1979.

Mike Veeck, Bill’s son, cooked up the idea. He approached Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl with it. Dahl had been let go from WDAI-FM when the station switched its programming to Disco. Dahl was able to catch on with WLUP-FM, but he still hated Disco and remained angry about his dismissal.

The concept of Disco Demolition was simple. Fans could gain entry to Comiskey for a doubleheader against Detroit with a Disco record and $.98. (98 was the frequency of WLUP.) The records would then be collected and blown up on the field in between games. It seemed like a winning proposition. WLUP would promote it, the White Sox would get a decent crowd, and Rock and Roll fans could vent about the hated Disco music they thought was destroying American culture.

The White Sox got more than a decent crowd. Over 47,000 jammed into the old ballpark with more outside wanting to get in on the fun. A thick haze of marijuana smoke hung over the upper deck like the fog during the May 31, 1976, game. Anyone could see that the atmosphere was menacing.

Steve Dahl went onto the field and the disco records were blown up on cue. Then everything blew up.

An AP photo by Fred Jewell tells a great deal of the story.10 Instead of a “Pitch at Risk to Zisk” banner, a “Disco Sucks” flag hangs from upper deck. Smoke rises up in center field close to the warning track. “Fans” swarm over the field with more on the way. A scoreboard message asking people to return to their seats glows ineffectually.

There was so much damage to the field that the second game was forfeited to the Tigers. Veeck’s critics piled on. His gimmicks and tricks had finally caught up with him, they crowed. His franchise and reputation were truly going up in smoke, and, shamefully, no one in baseball came to his defense.

The problem with Disco Demolition wasn’t the resulting chaos and destruction on the field. It was merely symbolic of the wreck that was the Chicago White Sox franchise. The year 1979 marked the twentieth year since the team’s last appearance in the World Series, but another appearance was not on the horizon. If the team had an interesting present and bright future, it wouldn’t have needed a zany promotion to draw fans, and it certainly wouldn’t have needed anything like Disco Demolition, a stunt that ultimately drew people who were not baseball fans and who did not care what they did to a historic baseball stadium. To build a future for a club in the free-agent era required one thing that Veeck didn’t have: deep pockets.

A year and a half later, Veeck sold the White Sox to an investment group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn.

But Veeck had inherited a bad situation. The team had little talent, attendance remained a chronic problem, and the White Sox weren’t coming close to contending for a division title. For a few years, the club was overshadowed by a more talented and popular Cubs team. The truth was the franchise had been on shaky ground since 1967 when they blew a chance to go to the World Series by losing the last five games of the season. On September 29, for the game in which they faced elimination from the pennant race, the White Sox sold only 12,665 tickets. Despite staying in the pennant race until the 160th game of the season, ticket sales dropped slightly from the previous year. The White Sox, because of a weak offense, were considered “boring.”11 (Then they lost the first ten of the 1968 campaign.)

But there had been the 1977 South Side Hitmen. There next time there was that much excitement at Comiskey Park was when White Sox won their first division title in 1983. LaMarr Hoyt, Richard Dotson, Ron Kittle, Britt Burns and Harold Baines were the core of that 1983 team which won 99 games. Those players had all come to the White Sox in various ways when Veeck was the owner.

A packed house of an announced 50,412 attended the July 31, 1977, doubleheader against Kansas City. The day was the high point of the season, when it appeared the slugging hitmen might have what it took to make the playoffs. Part of the draw that day was a promotion that allowed any fan with a banner to go on the field in between games. A large parade formed and made its way around the field. Unlike Disco Demolition, there was no riot or chaos. Just fans feeling like they were a part of their team. And Bill Veeck made that happen. 

DAN HELPINGSTINE is a freelance writer who has published seven books and two short stories. His publishing credits include five books on the Chicago White Sox, a local history book, and a political book about Dallas. He has worked as a stringer for three newspapers in Northwest Indiana. Helpingstine has a BA in Political Science from Indiana University. He is currently working on a fantasy novel. He lives with his wife, Delia, in Highland, Indiana.

 

Notes

1. Ed Herrmann, telephone interview, February 10, 2000

2. Gregory H. Wolf, “1975 Winter Meetings: The Threat of Free Agency and the Return of the Master Showman,” Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings, Vol. 2 (SABR: Phoenix, AZ, 2017). Also at https://sabr.org/journal/article/1975-winter-meetings-the-threat-of-free-agency-and-the-return-of-the-master-showman. Accessed June 12, 2023.

3. Joseph Durso, “Veeck Has the Funds to Pay White Sox Price Today,” The New York Times, December 10, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/10/archives/veeck-has-funds-to-pay-white-sox-price-today-veeck-set-to-buy-white.html. Accessed June 12, 2023.

4. Phil Hersh, “Veeck Was the Life of Comiskey Party,” Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1990.

5. Mike Trueblood, “Veeck Insures Fan Good Time With Sox,” Belvedere Dally Record, April 10, 1976, 6.

6. “Holy Cow! Sox win 4-0,” Bob Verdi, Chicago Tribune, April 10, 1976. Section 2, 1, 5.

7. Joe Goddard, telephone interview, January 9, 2009.

8. Bob Logan, “Sox chiefs refute gripes,” Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1976, Section 6, 1, 3.

9. Oscar Gamble, telephone interview, October 15, 2004.

10. Floyd Sullivan (Editor), Old Comiskey Park—Essays and Memories of the Historic Home of the Chicago White Sox 1910-1991 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2014), 110.

11. “Stanky Blasts Critics, Says Team Will Win on Guts, Determination,” Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1967, Section C, 1.