Page 127 - Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders

Ch07/P2_Baldoni_141496-7 5/22/03 12:35 PM Page 105
105
ASSESSING YOUR AUDIENCE
CHAPTER 7
THE STUNT
The stunt that transcended baseball and won Veeck a place in American
mythology is the one involving Eddie Gaedel. As Veeck tells us in his auto-
biography, in 1951 he was the owner of the St. Louis Browns, “a collection of
old rags and tags . . . rank[ing] in the annals of baseball a step or two ahead of
Cro-Magnon Man.” Looking for ways to get fans to the park, Veeck hit on the
idea of hiring a midget to pinch-hit. He signed Gaedel to a contract and
assigned him the number 1/8. Eddie walked on four pitches and into the his-
tory books, taking Veeck along with him. “I have always found humor in the
incongruous, I have always tried to entertain. And I have always found a
stuffed shirt the most irresistible of all targets.” 5
Veeck was not one to exploit the misfortunes of others. As one writer put
it in the introduction to the re-release of Veeck’s autobiography, Veeck—As in
Wreck, now back in print 40 years after its first printing in 1962, “Physically,
of course, Bill was not all there. His body was a mosaic of broken parts on bor-
6
rowed time.” He wore a prosthetic leg, the legacy of a war wound suffered as
a Marine in the South Pacific in World War II. The leg, along with his “impish
smile,” became his trademark.
EXCELLENT COMMUNICATOR
Veeck knew his fans not simply because he was one, but because he spent time
with them. Stories of him sitting in the stands with the paying public at
Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park are legion. He was accessible. Another way
he stayed in touch was by speaking frequently to groups in his market area.
Bill Veeck would never win an award for his presentation skills; however,
his speech teacher in college said that despite breaking all the rules for giving
7
a good speech, Veeck was effective. Pat Williams, a sports executive and
speaker in his own right for whom Veeck was something of a mentor, attrib-
utes Veeck’s speaking success to his storytelling and his humor. His standard
opening line was, “I used to own the St. Louis Browns, and I’m not used to
8
seeing so many people gathered together like this.” Famous for not wearing a
tie, he once addressed a formal dinner where the men were dressed in tuxe-
does: “First time I ever saw 1500 waiters for one customer.” 9
Veeck was also a “really good writer,” says his coauthor, Ed Linn, who
edited Veeck’s copy. Aside from Veeck’s autobiography, the two of them wrote
Hustler’s Handbook, which is considered the “virtual bible on sports promo-
tion.” A compendium of tricks and insights for bringing fans to the ballpark,
10
it is also a good read, chock full of good stories. Later Veeck became a colum-
nist for the Chicago Tribune and USA Today. As Pat Williams says, “The rea-
son [Veeck] wrote so prolifically and so well was because he had so much to
say. Just to listen to the words pour forth from the page was an engrossing