Bill Veeck in an undated photo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

In June of 1988, the National Center for the Laity published an article in its newsletter, “Initiatives,” on hidden saints. The piece prompted readers to send in their own nominations for American Catholics who had lived “saintly lives within ordinary circumstances.” Robert F. Kennedy was one suggestion; another was of course Dorothy Day. A third was less expected: former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck.

The anecdote, recounted in Paul Dickson’s 2012 biography, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, includes a caveat from the author: In truth, Veeck (who had joined the church in 1950 when he married his second wife) usually described himself as “a very casual Catholic.”

So maybe Veeck was no saint—but he certainly inspired great devotion among the faithful during a colorful and idiosyncratic life as a baseball owner and pioneer. His Cleveland Indians (he also owned the St. Louis Browns at one point) desegregated the American League in 1947 with the acquisition of Larry Doby. His quixotic ballpark gimmicks, giveaways and unique promotions made him a marketing legend. And his generosity made him a beloved philanthropist to many, including the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. All the while, this “pied piper” (his wife’s description) entertained fans and reporters alike.

What is he doing in a column about books? He was an author, too, collaborating with sportswriter Ed Linn on three books: Veeck as in Wreck (1962), The Hustler’s Handbook (1965) and Thirty Tons a Day (1972). The second earned him the eternal wrath of many a major league baseball owner, as it offered plenty of tea on the backroom shenanigans of those with the most financial interest in the national pastime.

Veeck came to mind last week when the Chicago White Sox sponsored their already legendary “pope hat” night, where every fan in attendance at Chicago’s Rate Field received a replica of a papal miter to celebrate the team’s most famous fan: Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. A bit of marketing genius (the game included a fifth-inning sign of peace overseen by a priest), the extravaganza would have pleased no one more than the team’s former owner.

Of course, Bill Veeck was a man who once offered a giveaway of 30,000 Eskimo Pies at a White Sox game—with all 30,000 going to one ticket holder. He built an exploding scoreboard, too, that launched fireworks into the sky every time the White Sox homered. He once hired a 3-foot-7-inch, 65-pound little person, Eddie Gaedel, to take a single at-bat for his St. Louis Browns. (Gaedel walked on four pitches and then retired.) He once gave fans a collective vote on the manager’s decisions during a game. And, of course, he oversaw one of the most notorious promotions in baseball history: Disco Demolition Night.

Born in Chicago in 1914, Veeck grew up around baseball: His father, William Sr., was a sportswriter who somewhat improbably became president of the Chicago Cubs. Veeck himself worked for both the Cubs and the White Sox, and later claimed it was he who had the idea to plant ivy on the outfield wall at Wrigley Field. Veeck attended Phillips Academy in Massachusetts and Kenyon College in Ohio, though he left school when his father died in 1933.

He lost a leg while serving in the U.S. Marines during World War II. Among many Veeck legends is that he carved ashtrays into the series of wooden legs he used for the rest of his life, and once threw his leg on the table during a heated negotiation. (The jokes were bittersweet: His biography reports he had more than 30 surgeries on the leg over his lifetime.)

Veeck bought the Cleveland Indians in 1946 (an era when sports franchise ownership did not require a personal fortune), and a year later signed the first Black player in the American League, Larry Doby, just a few months after Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in baseball’s modern era. Three decades later, Veeck would hire Doby to be White Sox manager, making him the second Black manager in Major League Baseball. 

Though financial troubles forced him to sell the Indians in 1949, by 1951 Veeck had made a quick return, this time as the majority owner of the St. Louis Browns. His tenure was eventful but short, and in 1953 the other owners more or less forced him to sell the team, which then moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. 

In 1959, Veeck was back, this time as the head of a group that purchased the Chicago White Sox from the Comiskey family. A year later, he tried to join another group seeking to bring American League baseball to Los Angeles but failed. In 1961, he sold the White Sox; it looked like the end of his colorful career in baseball. 

Not so. Following several abortive attempts to purchase other franchises, he bought the Chicago White Sox again in 1975. The hijinks began anew. For Opening Day in 1976, he sponsored a “Spirit of ’76” Bicentennial celebration that included him hobbling along as a one-legged Revolutionary War soldier playing a fife at the tail of the on-field parade. He commissioned announcer Harry Caray (then with the White Sox) to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch. And, of course, he once sent the White Sox out for a game in Bermuda shorts.

Three years later came “Disco Demolition Night,” which resulted in a chaotic on-field riot, a forfeit by the White Sox and—according to some cultural historians—the beginning of the end for the disco era.

Veeck sold the White Sox for the last time in 1981. He died at the age of 71 of emphysema in 1986 and was elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame five years later. His wife Mary-Frances Veeck—a true character in her own right—outlived him by 36 years, dying in 2022 at the tender age of 102.

The Veecks were longtime advocates for racial integration and other social causes in Chicago. Among their philanthropic interests was the Catholic Theological Union, formed in 1968 amid the theological ferment that followed the Second Vatican Council. The new consortium found a home near the Veecks in Chicago’s Hyde Park and enthusiastic boosters and fundraisers in the colorful couple. (Among its graduates? The future Pope Leo XIV.) The Mary-Frances and Bill Veeck Art Gallery at the Catholic Theological Union is named in their honor.

Between his three books and a lifetime of zany interactions with reporters and fans, Veeck gathered a substantial collection of quotable moments. One quote on his love for baseball also displayed his wry and self-deprecating sense of humor:

I was in the game for love. After all, where else can an old-timer with one leg, who can’t hear or see, live like a king while doing the only thing I wanted to do?

Fans who want an imaginative film treatment of Bill Veeck’s career (and that of his son Mike) should take a look at “The Saint of Second Chances” on Netflix.

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Our poetry selection for this week is “Liturgy in the Glow,” by 

David Anson Lee. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.

Other recent Catholic Book Club columns:

Happy reading!

James T. Keane

James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.