Thirty-five percent of the crowd at Joe Riley Park are real baseball fans, according to Mike Veeck. The rest are there for the fun.
I 44
N MOST CITIES WITH MAJOR LEAGUE baseball teams, winning and large, boisterous crowds go together like beer and hot dogs. Give the fans something to cheer about and they’ll come back to the ballpark night after night. Te same isn’t true in the minors, where it’s
more important to develop the skills of players who will someday make it to Te Show than it is to win baseball games. Mike Veeck, Mount Pleasant resident and president of the Charleston RiverDogs, has been experi- menting with ideas to pump up attendance and make baseball fun for the fans for much of his adult life. Some- times it works out; now and then his plans fall flat. One misbegotten idea got him kicked out of baseball for almost a decade, or so he thinks. Undaunted, the third-generation baseball executive continues his somewhat unconventional crusade to com- bine fun with baseball at Joe Riley Park. He knows the real baseball fans will be there. What he wants is to give those who don’t know a gopher ball from a ground-rule double a taste of the game he loves.
“Tirty-five percent of the crowd are baseball purists,” he pointed out. “Te other 65 percent are there for fun. A good team is not good enough. You have to do everything you can to attract attention.” Veeck – it rhymes with wreck – was born into a baseball family. His grandfather was the president of the Chicago Cubs, and his father at various times owned the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox. Te younger Veeck has worked for four MLB teams: the White Sox, Tigers, Marlins and Devil Rays are all on his resume. His own son, William Night Train Veeck, is social media director for the White Sox. Bill Veeck, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, was among the sport’s most innovative executives. As the owner of the Indians, he signed Larry Doby, the American League’s first African-American player, and, in 1951, when the woeful Browns were his, he hired a dwarf who had one at bat as a pinch hitter. (He drew a walk.) Tis sounds a bit like some of the promotions that
have emerged from Mike Veeck’s brain since he arrived in Charleston in 1996. A couple of his ideas, Vasectomy Night and Voodoo Night, which he described as “memo- rable failures,” never materialized. “Vasectomy Night lasted about 80 minutes,” Veeck explained. “Te president of Minor League Baseball called and told me not to do it. Voodoo Night was supposed to be on Friday the 13th. Tat didn’t happen either.” Some of Veeck’s ideas have hit the jackpot, though. On
Nobody Night, the crowd was locked out until the game became official. Vendors went through the stands hawk- ing beer and popcorn to empty seats until the gates were opened and around 3,000 people poured in after the fifth
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