[Veeck: A Man For Any Season raw #1]

This tape features raw footage of an interview with Bill Veeck at his home in Hyde Park (Chicago). Veeck is interviewed about his hobby of mobile making.

00:00Copy video clip URL This tape begins with color bars and tone.

00:51Copy video clip URL Open on Bill Veeck putting together a mobile at his home. We watch as Veeck quietly concentrates on his work. This lasts for several minutes.

07:07Copy video clip URL One of the videomakers asks Veeck about his love for mobile making. Veeck explains that his mobile making hobby developed from his time spent doing wood sculpturing. Veeck talks about his love for working with his hands. “I get a great deal of pleasure out of using my hands for things like this. I suppose, you see, baseball is an escape for a great many people. The majority of people who go to ballgames use it as a form of escape, which is why it’s important that they be played in sunshine, and the ballparks have grass and not artificial turf, so that they can get away from the problems that beset them in their ordinary life. And since that’s a great part of my life, my normal life, things like this became an escape for me, and it gave me something to do that wasn’t entirely connected with baseball or some variation on the theme.” Veeck then says that mobiles bring a “zest” to his life.

10:56Copy video clip URL When asked whether he’s ever made the same mobile twice, Veeck says, “I don’t think you can make the same one twice. … That’s one of the joys of making them is that you don’t make the same one twice. They’re all different and I think they all show a difference in mood.” Veeck talks about some of the mobiles he’s made for other people.

14:19Copy video clip URL Veeck stands up and reaches on top of a bookcase to grab a clear bag filled with fabric parrots. Veeck expresses his love for using parrots in mobiles and states that they “have a mind of their own. … They resent being to close to certain other parrots and become very difficult to handle.” Veeck then talks his first experience with patience. He talks about his time spent in a Naval hospital after getting injured in the war. “And I spent about eight months in bed. I could only move three inches each way, and you’d be amazed at how you did learn patience. There wasn’t anywhere to go and you could either become terribly dissatisfied with your plight or you could find how you could utilize your time.” Veeck then tells a story about what brought him around to this view. A fellow patient at the facility asked Veeck if he wanted to play cards with him. Veeck opted not to play. But after seeing that the man had no hands and was dealing cards with some type of claw contraption, Veeck got the drive he needed to get over feeling sorry for himself. Veeck’s answer gets cut off due to the end of the tape.

18:35Copy video clip URL Tape ends.