Attribution: US Marine Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reminds the keeper that the baseball season is off and running and it is time for his annual lament about the editor who, to the keeper’s consternation, cut Bill Veeck’s wooden leg out of one of the keeper’s Tribune columns.
The scene was the bleachers at Wrigley Field where Veeck and his band of cronies were having a great time enjoying the Cubs game on a sunny summer afternoon.
It was a natural column and in writing it the keeper noted that the sun was “reflecting off Veeck’s wooden leg” but when the column was published that sentence was missing. When confronted, an editor said it was eliminated because “it unnecessarily called attention to a handicap.”
Veeck’s wooden leg was not a handicap. It was a unique mobility aid with a built-in ashtray and Veeck flaunted it.
The keeper never assaulted an editor but sometimes he thought about it.
