The Baseball Reliquary Presents
BILL VEECK:
BASEBALL’S GREATEST MAVERICK
Exhibition: April 9-May 24, 2012
Arcadia Public Library, 20 W. Duarte Road,
Arcadia, California
Information: (626) 791-7647 or
terymar@earthlink.net
The Baseball Reliquary presents “Bill
Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick,” a major
exhibition on the life and times of one of the
most influential figures in baseball history,
from April 9-May 24, 2012, at the Arcadia Public
Library, 20 W. Duarte Road, Arcadia, California.
The exhibition is based on Paul Dickson’s
book,
Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick,
the first major biography on this American
original, which will be published in April 2012.
The exhibition will utilize photographs,
artworks, artifacts, and documents to illustrate
key elements of Dickson’s original research.
Much of the signage is excerpted from the
book.
The displays will include nearly 100
photographs encompassing the extraordinary
career of Bill Veeck.
Many of the images have rarely, if ever,
been shown publicly.
While the tendency today is to remember
Bill Veeck (1914-1986) as baseball’s most
eccentric showman – the man who sent a midget to
the plate for the St. Louis Browns and who was
responsible for the infamous Disco Demolition
Night – he was much, much more.
As this exhibition will show, Veeck was a
transformational figure in the history of
baseball.
A nonconformist and visionary, he spent a
lifetime challenging baseball’s and society’s
well-entrenched status quo.
As a four-time major-league team owner,
Bill Veeck brought change to both the business
and conscience of baseball.
He was a prime mover in the racial
integration of the game, both on the field and
in the front office.
As owner of the Cleveland Indians, he was
the first to integrate the American League when
he signed Larry Doby in 1947, eleven weeks after
Jackie Robinson debuted in the National League.
Veeck’s combination of financial
creativity and marketing genius was unlike
anything else in the history of sports.
He pioneered new ways to treat baseball
as a successful business, and his wildly
innovative marketing techniques drew in so many
fans that he set records for ballpark
attendance.
In 1986, Hank Greenberg, Veeck’s close
friend, told the
New York
Times: “Bill brought baseball into the 20th
century.
Before Bill, baseball was just winning or
losing.
But he made it fun to be at the
ballpark.”
Bill Veeck delighted in being everyman’s
owner, and today’s game reflects much of what he
fought for.
“His influence is everywhere,” noted
baseball executive Andy MacPhail in a 2009
interview.
“All those activities going on at the
modern ballpark outside the white lines can in
some way be traced back to Veeck.”
Veeck was posthumously inducted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 and the
Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals in
1999.
Library hours for the exhibition are
Monday-Thursday, 10:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.;
Friday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.; closed
Sunday.
For further information, contact the
Baseball Reliquary by phone at (626) 791-7647 or
by e-mail at
terymar@earthlink.net.
For directions, phone the Arcadia Public
Library at (626) 821-5567 during library hours.
The exhibition, which is free of charge,
is made possible, in part, by a grant to the
Baseball Reliquary from the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles
County Arts Commission.
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