VEECK AS IN BEAK.

VEECK AS IN BEAK. Bill Veeck presided over the only White Sox pennant in over 80 years. He brought back Minnie Minoso. They were contenders. And yet my father every so often would go through a stretch of mispronouncing Bill Veeck’s name so that it rhymed with “beak.” This happened when Veeck had made a trade that my father disagreed with. Veeck admitted that he was always ready to trade a prospect (a player who might be good in the future) for a player who was an established major league player. The young players Veeck traded did turn out to be good: Johnny Callison, Norm Cash, Don Mincher, Earl Battey, John Romano…. Elmer and I didn’t approve of the trades either, but, looking back, my father had special reasons to regret the trades. He had rooted for the Sox during the losing years from 1921 to 1950, during which time they finished as high as 3rd in the league only twice. Since 1920, they had never had more than one or two promising players. I posted here about how Jean Shepherd (the creator of A Christmas Story) said that “if he had to go over the top in a battle, he would want to have White Sox fans beside him, because they had known the terrors of this earth.” In VEECK AS IN WRECK, Bill Veeck says: “If there is any justice in this world, to be a White Sox fan freed a man from any other form of penance.” My father stayed loyal. Writing this on Father’s Day, I realize that the White Sox were something he had shared with his father, just as Elmer and I and my sister Mary shared the White Sox with him.