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Something Extra
Fans eat up the gimmicks, but the 56-year-old Veeck, a purist at heart, knows baseball is perfect with or without them. "You can sit and visit during a game," says the Charleston, South Carolina, resident. "My wife, my kids and I will talk and only catch about three innings, but it's a pastoral sport and you can pick up where you left off." Best of all, the rules don't change. "I live in a chaotic world that I increasingly don't understand. I find it very reassuring that it's been three strikes, four balls, ninety feet forever."Still, as Veeck learned from his father, while 40 percent of fans are diehards who'll come to the stadium no matter what, the rest want something extra. And Dad knew a thing or two about baseball.
The legendary Bill Veeck, who died in 1986, was the onetime owner of the St. Louis Browns, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox, but he's probably best remembered for sending a midget up to bat. When Veeck père invited his son to help him lead the White Sox, in 1976, the 24-year-old jumped at the chance. After all, who could say no to a guy who thought it would be great fun to carve an ashtray into his wooden peg leg? And fun they had, culminating in the greatest failure of them all: Disco Demolition Night.
It was Mike's idea. Disco fever was running unchecked through the land, and he decided he was just the man to put a stop to it. White Sox fans were asked to bring their disco records to Comiskey Park to be summarily blown up between games of a doubleheader. Was it a success? A hundred thousand people tried to get into a stadium built for half that number, traffic was snarled for miles, and as the disco pyre grew, so did the rioting. In the end, the second game was forfeited.
Then it got worse: The team was eventually sold, and Mike lost his job. "Sometimes," Bill Veeck told his devastated son, "you have ones that work too well."
After Disco Demolition, Mike retreated to Florida, where he spent a few years drinking the memories away. In 1989, the Goldklang Group, a consortium of baseball lovers including actor Bill Murray, purchased the Miami Miracle, a minor-league club (now the Fort Myers Miracle). A team executive was on a plane when he bumped into baseball guru and former Sox GM Roland Hemond, who recommended his old boss's son, adding, "If you're dumb enough to buy the Miracle, you're dumb enough to hire Veeck." Just like that, Mike Veeck, by then clean and sober, was back in baseball.
He returned with a simple mission: Put fannies in the seats. "The best ballparks are the ones run for the fans," he says. So they were treated to Tonya Harding Mini-Bat Night; Labor Day, when pregnant women got in free; and groundskeepers dragging the infield in drag. Veeck even locked fans out of one park for five innings just to set the record for lowest attendance.
Today, Mike Veeck's brand of baseball is more popular than ever. Want proof? Last season, the St. Paul Saints filled Midway Stadium to 102 percent occupancy. Sometimes you have ones that work just right.
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