Veeck, Lazzeri Are Elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame

TAMPA, Fla. — Fun-loving Bill Veeck, the maverick owner who infuriated the bosses of baseball but delighted the fans, was elected to the Hall of Fame Tuesday by the veterans committee.

Also named was power-hitting second baseman Tony Lazzeri, an integral member of Murderers’ Row, the New York Yankee team that dominated baseball in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Veeck and Lazzeri were selected from among 30 nominees who had survived a screening process. They will be inducted next summer with Rod Carew, Ferguson Jenkins and Gaylord Perry, who were elected last month by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

Veeck, who died in 1986, owned the Cleveland Indians from 1946-50, the St. Louis Browns from 1951-1953 and twice owned the Chicago White Sox, from 1959-1961 and 1975-1980.

In 1948, he brought Larry Doby to the Cleveland Indians as the first black player in the American League, and the Indians won the World Series. In 1959, he won a pennant with the White Sox.

Those were his triumphs, but he is better remembered for his gimmicks--exploding scoreboards to celebrate home runs, fireworks and his use of 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel as a pinch-hitter with the Browns in 1951.

In 14 major league seasons, Lazzeri had a batting average of .292 with 178 home runs and 1,191 runs batted in.