Bill Veeck Marquee Hall of Fame 1991

Bill Veeck grew up in a baseball family: his father ran the Cubs, and as a young Wrigley Field employee he is credited with planting the ivy on its outfield walls. Born in February 1914 and dead in January 1986, he appeared on six Hall of Fame ballots before the Veterans Committee elected him in 1991.

He owned Cleveland when it signed Larry Doby in July 1947, the first Black player in the American League, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson. This archive now counts the Negro Leagues, so Doby's record begins in 1942 with the Newark Eagles rather than in Cleveland, which is a truer picture of what Veeck was buying.

At St. Louis in 1951 he sent Eddie Gaedel, three feet seven inches tall, up to bat, and the league voided the contract the next day. He lost a leg in the Marines and used the wooden one as an ashtray. The owners disliked him and he said the feeling was mutual, which is most of why the plaque took so long.