Mike Veeck always has a plan, of some sort. He’s what people call a creative who has made a career in the family business.
Of ideas good and dumb, the St. Paul Saints co-owner says, “I’ve had my share.”
Like his grandfather and father before him, Veeck is a baseball lifer. Like his father, Bill, he has been dedicated to making baseball more fun and accessible for fans, and never has he done it more successfully than with the Saints, who since their advent in 1993 have become the poster team for his mantra “Fun is Good.”
So, as the Saints prepare to open their first season as the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate Tuesday in Omaha, Neb., you should know Veeck wants more out of the new relationship than a stake in a Triple-A baseball team.
“What makes this so attractive for me personally is for the first time in a long time, I think we have a seat at the table,” Veeck said Monday.
With baseball welcoming fans back to ballparks after a season without any in the stands, the timing is right for Major League Baseball to reassess its relationship with fans. The Twins, Veeck believes, might be the conduit.
“Thirty years ago, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be in this position,” he said. “And I don’t mean in the position of owning a Triple-A team, I mean in the position to have people paying attention. … And I know at least with the Twins, it’s not just lip service.”
Veeck, 69, isn’t just serious about fun, he’s serious about injecting it back into a game that has become more uptight as it has become more affluent. It’s why Veeck left affiliated ball to found the Northern League in 1993, and why he is back 28 years later.
Baseball hasn’t been secondary to the Saints; it’s always been solid, and given locals and former major leaguers a chance to play again, both in the case of Jack Morris. But the bottom line was the fan experience, even if it was simply the chance to do something different in a major-league market — more fan interaction with players, hall of famers in the stands visiting with fans, and more fun on the field.
“I want 40 Fernando Tatises flipping their bats,” Veeck said. “We want guys who are going to say, ‘After I launch this, watch this, then tell me if it matters or not. By the way, I’m having a great time doing this.’ ”
Veeck’s father, Bill, owned, at various times, the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox, as well as the then-Class AAA Milwaukee Brewers. His reputation remains less about his teams’ success than it is about how he tried to make the gameday experience more fun for fans. In Milwaukee, he hired Max Patkin as a coach, and in Cleveland he installed a portable center-field fence for the 1947 season until MLB stopped him before the 1948 season.
After he led a group of investors that bought the White Sox in 1975, he signed veteran Minnie Minoso, then 50 years old, to play two games in September (he was 1 for 6). Five years later, Veeck invited him back to make him the second player in history to play in five decades.
Mike Veeck made it six and seven decades when he put Minoso back at the plate in 1993 and 2003, but not before he tried to do it with the Class A Miami Miracle in 1991 and was shot down by then-Commissioner Fay Vincent.
That made Veeck so mad, he agreed to found the Northern League and bring the Saints back to St. Paul. He recently sold his stake in the Charleston, S.C., RiverDogs, leaving him with the Saints, which he co-owns with Marv Goldklang and Bill Murray — and maybe his last best chance to change baseball beyond St. Paul.
After doing a flyover in a C17 military transport plane at the RiverDogs’ home opener Tuesday, Veeck on Wednesday will start the drive to St. Paul in his RV so he can attend the Saints’ first home game as the Twins’ Triple-A team next week. So far, he has seen “some very subtle signals sent that people are receptive” to his mission.
“I tend to be very optimistic,” he said. “I’m not Pollyanna, but I’m very optimistic. Suddenly we have baseball here saying, ‘Gosh, we missed the fans. Baseball was not as fun without fans!’ We have a gigantic opportunity for a reset here.”
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John Shipley: As Triple-A team owner, Saints’ Mike Veeck feels he has ‘a seat at the table’ - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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