REVELING WRECK
e smoked four packs a, drank a case of beer a day, read a book a day. He hobbled on a wooden leg—the result of a World War II wound—but loved to dance exuberantly. He refused to wear ties and preferred a cheap seat in the bleachers, even when he owned the stadium. He was baseball’s resident intellectual and most gleefully vulgar self-promoter. A cunning capitalist who owned three big-league teams, he voted for perennial Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas—even after Thomas died. “I’d rather vote for a dead man with class than two live bums,” he explained.
