It was with “deep regret that the owners noted his departure and wished for his speedy recovery and return to good health and personal vibrancy.” No mention, however, was made by his fellow owners of his return to baseball, which was neither welcomed nor anticipated.1 On July 22, 1961, the Veeck family left their home in Chicago in a station wagon emblazoned with the White Sox logo. Veeck was in the front seat with his driver and Mary Frances, who was holding their three-week-old daughter, Juliana (the scoreboard at Comiskey Park had been fired off to celebrate her birth). In the backseat were Mike, ten (nicknamed “McGillicuddy” after Connie Mack); Marya, six; Greg, five; Lisa, two; and their nurse, Patricia O’Brian.2 The Veecks were on their way to a nineteen-room brown shingle home on a seventeen-acre wooded estate in Easton, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. The property sloped toward the banks of Peachblossom Creek and sat on a circular driveway. The estate, which the Veecks immediately dubbed “Tranquility,”
