Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck thought outside the box.
One of the best ways to understand Veeck’s brilliant mind is to go inside a large plastic storage box of treasured clippings, notes, paperwork, and pictures covering Veeck’s years of owning the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, and St. Louis Browns.
It is a remarkable archive that has never been made public.
Mary Frances, Bill Veeck, and midget files.
There’s files and files and files: “How Veeck Got the Sox–1975.” “Scoreboard.” “Buys Browns 1951.” “Veeck-Cuba” “Disco Demolition.” “Amputation,” “Veeck in High School (Hinsdale Central). [...]
Lee’s Barber Shop is in a tiny strip mall on the near north side of Naperville, Ill. A seasonal Dairy Queen sits south of the barbershop and a shuttered dry cleaner is on the north end of what is known as Modern Way Center. Lee’s has as much in common with the Las Vegas Strip as hair on Bruce Willis.
The new master barber at Lee’s is Noe Hernandez, Jr.
Hernandez grew up in the Naperville area, about 40 miles west of Chicago, before embarking on a career that took him to the Palmer House in Chicago, H.R.H. Truefitt, and Hill Barbers in London (the oldest barbershop in the world) and most recently master barber at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
I have many lovely books about Chicago baseball in my library.
One of my top ten favorites is “You Should Have Seen The Ones I Turned Down (Tales from a Life Spent in Hotels and Locker Rooms with everyone from Jerry Vale to Leo Durocher),” a 2008 autobiography by former Chicago Cubs traveling secretary Blake Cullen. I found the 156-page paperback in 2012 in the corner of Prince Books in downtown Norfolk, Va.
I couldn’t turn down a book with that title.
I learned that Cullen was born in Chicago and that his father George Thomas Cullen was hotel manager at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. When his father moved [...]
Mark Baier is sitting in his warehouse in an industrial park on the far west side of Naperville, Ill. He picks up a Stratocaster and starts to play the Beatles hit “I Feel Fine.”
And why shouldn’t Baier feel fine?
The warm tones on a cold February afternoon are impeccable through his Victoria Amplifier. Baier created and designed the Victoria, the amplifier of choice for Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, John Legend, John Mayer, and many more. Mayer made the effort to find the Victoria Amplifier Company, lost in a shuffle of nondescript industries like Conley Steel and MidWest Stair Parts near the border of west [...]
