Characters: The King of Swing

Mike Veeck brings crazy back to baseball.

Successes and Failures

"I can't understand why so many people just don't like mimes," says Mike Veeck, huckster, modern-day P. T. Barnum and co-owner of five minor-league baseball teams. Veeck ("as in wreck," goes the family joke), for one, loves mimes, which helps explain how he came up with the nutty idea -- one of hundreds he spawns daily -- of having them substitute for instant replay at one of his ballparks.
It's 1993, and the St. Paul Saints are playing the Duluth-Superior Dukes. Between innings, staffers toss T-shirts and rubber chickens into the crowd, fans are on the field competing in dizzy bat races, and a nun in the bleachers is giving shoulder massages. The game resumes, and a Saints player gets called out. The fans boo. Five people in black, their faces covered in white makeup, appear on top of the dugout and begin acting out the play.

One slowly swings a "bat" and begins to "run" toward "first base." Another "fields" the "ball" and ever so slowly "throws" to the "first baseman," who "catches" the "ball" before the player "touches" the "bag." Through it all, there is complete silence. The fans don't know what to make of it. Then one guy has an idea: He pelts a mime with a hot dog. A mad rush to the concession stands follows, and before long, the performers are being clobbered by a hail of frankfurters.

"We had to stop the game for 20 minutes," Veeck remembers with a laugh. "The mimes began gesturing things that weren't mime-like."

The experience didn't deter Veeck, who's made minor-league ball an experience not to be missed. No mimes were harmed in the making of this stunt, which was good enough for him. Besides, failure means press, and any press is good press, according to this graduate of the as-long-as-they-spell-my-name-right school of public relations.

In fact, some of Veeck's biggest successes have been failures. There was the time he booked a cockatiel to announce a game, only to find out it suffered from stage fright. And the night game for which he invited a medium onto the field to channel the spirit of lightbulb inventor Thomas Edison. The only spirit the medium conjured up was some spook named John.

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• The Home Team
• As boys, my brothers were mad about baseball. And I helped feed the family obsession.
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• Father and Son At Bat
• How baseball and the national anthem taught us harmony.
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• A Winning Friendship
• Four teammates and the bond that helped make them champions.
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• Outrageous! Play Ball -- Or Else!
• When fat-cat sports owners want a big new stadium, guess who they shake down?
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