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    Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick
    Unavailable
    Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick
    Unavailable
    Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick
    Ebook647 pages11 hours

    Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick

    By Paul Dickson

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    William Louis "Bill" Veeck, Jr. (1914-1986) is legendary in many ways-baseball impresario and innovator, independent spirit, champion of civil rights in a time of great change. Paul Dickson has written the first full biography of this towering figure, in the process rewriting many aspects of his life and bringing alive the history of America's pastime. In his late 20s, Veeck bought into his first team, the American Association Milwaukee Brewers. After serving and losing a leg in WWII, he bought the Cleveland Indians in 1946, and a year later broke the color barrier in the American League by signing Larry Doby, a few months after Jackie Robinson-showing the deep commitment he held to integration and equal rights. Cleveland won the World Series in 1948, but Veeck sold the team for financial reasons the next year. He bought a majority of the St. Louis Browns in 1951, sold it three years later, then returned in 1959 to buy the other Chicago team, the White Sox, winning the American League pennant his first year. Ill health led him to sell two years later, only to gain ownership again, 1975-1981. Veeck's promotional spirit-the likes of clown prince Max Patkin and midget Eddie Gaedel are inextricably connected with him-and passion endeared him to fans, while his feel for the game led him to propose innovations way ahead of their time, and his deep sense of morality not only integrated the sport but helped usher in the free agency that broke the stranglehold owners had on players. (Veeck was the only owner to testify in support of Curt Flood during his landmark free agency case). Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick is a deeply insightful, powerful biography of a fascinating figure. It will take its place beside the recent bestselling biographies of Satchel Paige and Mickey Mantle, and will be the baseball book of the season in Spring 2012.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateApr 24, 2012
    ISBN9780802778314
    Unavailable
    Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick
    Author

    Paul Dickson

    Paul Dickson is the author of more than forty books, including The Joy of Keeping Score, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Baseball's Greatest Quotations, and Baseball: The Presidents' Game. In addition to baseball, his specialties include Americana and language. He lives in Garrett Park, Maryland.

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    Reviews for Bill Veeck

    4.5/5

    15 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fair, impartial treatment of one of most innovative baseball owners ever. He was a civil rights pioneer and a showman. Modern baseball owes much to the rebel owner.
    • 5/5

      An absolutely terrific biography, obviously well researched and equally well written. Although this book is a favorable portrait, it clearly shows the man's flaws. Highly recommended, though I'm sure some will disagree, as Veeck remains a controversial figure.

      I bought my copy of this book as a Google Play ebook, and need to comment on that edition. Google offers this book is only as a PDF. I expect this is also true of the Nook and Kindle editions, though neither retailer suggests anything unusual in their book descriptions. I found reading the book in PDF form on my Android tablet fairly painful, as I've grown accustomed to adjusting the fonts to accommodate my aging eyes. It's far from clear that avoiding the now-common epub format brought any significant gain to anyone.

      My initial guess was that the publishers had chosen to use PDF because they wanted to control presentation, probably because of the book's image content. Except that explanation doesn't hold water, as the PDF contains just two photographs (one of them repeated). Since the index lists 41 images, it's clear that the actual decision was to cut most of the pictures from the ebook. This is seriously annoying, and this note is my complaint. (For whatever it's worth, there is a similar complaint in a review of the Nook edition on the Barnes and Noble website.) The publishers, Walker & Company of New York, should be ashamed.

      



      This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.