Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive

HarperBusiness

Chapter One

"I'd like 15,000 Tickets for
Tonight's Game, Please"

The fifteen minutes of fame that the late Andy Warhol promisedeach of us came to me in the spring of 1984. I was the point manin a nationally publicized effort to outflank Calvin Griffith, theowner of the Minnesota Twins baseball team. Griffith wanted tosell his ball club to a group of Florida businesspeople who wouldhave moved the Twins to Tampa. Another group, consisting ofTwin Cities people, with which I was involved, wanted to keepthe club there, under local ownership -- and see to it that wedidn't get caught up in a very expensive bidding war.

Unlike Calvin, we had a secret weapon: Bill Veeck.

In case you don't know who Bill Veeck is, he was the manwho, in 1951, as owner of the hapless St. Louis Browns, stagedan innocent-appearing promotion that so upset the baseball establishment -- and so endeared him to baseball fans -- that foras long as the game is played, he will be remembered as the manwho "sent a midget to bat."

At three feet, seven inches and sixty-five pounds, EddieGaedel, ordinarily a vaudeville performer, gave the Browns oneof their rare distinctions. He was the first and only certifiablemidget to appear in a Major League Baseball game. For therecord, he walked on four straight pitches and upon reaching firstbase was replaced immediately by a pinch runner. True to form,the runner was stranded on third and the Browns lost the game.But from the uproar Veeck had created you would have thoughthe'd called Babe Ruth a transvestite.

Veeck also operated five baseball clubs, three in the majorsand two in the minors, won pennants, set major-league attendancerecords, was the promotional genius who helped innovatebat night, glove night, fan appreciation night, players' names onuniforms, exploding scoreboards, the ivy-covered walls of theWrigley Field bleachers, the expansion of the major leagues, theunrestricted draft, and such yet-to-be-adopted proposals as interleagueplay.

In a word, he was a visionary. In another word, he was a maverick.My first contact with Veeck was simple enough. I pickedup the phone and called him. Veeck prided himself on beingtotally accessible to anyone. Unlike most club owners, Veeckroamed the stands, schmoozing with his customers, instead ofhiding out in a private box, à la Steinbrenner. Veeck had opinionson just about everything, and he loved to lay them on anyonewho would listen.

As the situation in the Twin Cities began to unfold, I foundmyself calling Veeck almost daily. Here's what we were upagainst: Griffith had an escape clause in his stadium lease thatpermitted him to cancel if the Twins' attendance did not reach 4.2 million fans over a three-year period. Thanks to an inferiorproduct, attendance over the previous two years had been so badthat by the end of the 1984 season the Twins would have had todraw 2.4 million to reach the 4.2 million total. However, if thetotal was reached, Griffith would be bound to his lease, and toMinnesota, for three more years.

Though he'd be free once again to leave after each three-yearstint, he knew and we knew that once he had announced his desireto leave, the already disgruntled fans would turn on hisshoddy product with a vengeance, and he would be forced to endureanother three years of horrendous attendance and red ink.

So, unwilling to spend the money necessary to improve theteam, he was determined to sell. Just as we were determined tosee that the Twins hit 2.4 million in attendance in 1984. And hehad only one group to sell to: us.

Our problem was that 2.4 million was an almost impossiblegoal. Veeck had set a major-league record that stood for fifteenyears when he drew 2.8 million with a pennant-winning club inCleveland. Less than a month into the 1984 season, it was clearthe Minnesota Twins were going nowhere.

Confident that there was nothing anyone in Minneapolis orSt. Paul could do to bind Griffith to his lease, in late April theFlorida group endeared themselves to Griffith. They accomplishedthis by ridding him of a longtime antagonist, Gabe Murphy,when they bought Murphy's 43 percent minority interest inthe club for $11 million.

Griffith then announced that he was open to all offers for hismajority interest as long as they were for at least $50 million,which is what the pennant-contending Detroit club had just soldfor. Calvin then sat back waiting for the bidding war to unfold betweenTampa and Minnesota for the remaining stock.

What he hadn't counted on was the tenacity of the Twin Cities community and the long memory of Bill Veeck. Twenty-fiveyears earlier, Veeck, as the owner of the Chicago White Sox, hadvoted at an American League meeting in favor of Griffith's moveof the Washington Senators franchise to Minnesota. In exchange,Veeck felt he had an agreement from Griffith to support Veeck'sbid for an expansion franchise in newly vacated Washington. ToVeeck's mind, Griffith reneged on the deal when he voted for anothergroup. It was an act Veeck would not forget. He devotedan entire chapter of his autobiography, Veeck as in Wreck, toGriffithian duplicity, a topic that also included another ancientwound inflicted years earlier when Griffith's uncle, Clark Grif-fith, supposedly reneged on a promise to let Veeck move theBrowns' franchise to Baltimore.

What Veeck told me was that if we could mount a buyoutTwins tickets sufficient to boost 1984 attendance to 2.4 million,Griffith would cave in and sell to us at our price, knowing thatthe club couldn't be packed off to Tampa, the fan resentment overhis threatened move would be so great he couldn't afford to operateit any longer ...