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). [...]
Mary Frances and Bill Veeck on March 10, 1959 when Bill purchased 54 % of the White Sox for $2.7 million. (Photo courtesy of the Veeck family.)
Mary Frances Veeck is surrounded by a garden.
She is sitting with her daughter Marya on a mid-August morning in the patio of her Hyde Park retirement home. There are red begonias, sunflowers, and gold daisies. A visitor brings yellow flowers, just as he used to do with his mother. Mary Frances’s life has been a bouquet of joy, dancing, tears, and long summer nights. She was married to Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck from 1950 until he died in 1986.
Mary [...]
