Handsome Admission

With a baseball Barnum's flair for profitable hokum, Bill Veeck touched a match to Lou Boudreau's old contract, and grinned while the flames consumed it. Then 31-year-old Lou Boudreau signed a new, two-year contract as player-manager of the Cleveland Indians. Neither Boudreau nor the Indians' President Veeck was telling the exact salary, but they encouraged guesses of about $65,000 a year.

The new salary was a big boost over Boudreau's 1948 pay of $52,000, and (according to Veeck) "by far the largest straight salary ever offered a player by the club."* But Lou had earned it with his spectacular triple performance--as the American League's best shortstop, its best hitter (.355) after Boston's Ted Williams, and manager of the league and world's champions. President Veeck threw in a handsome admission: "Sure, I tried to trade the guy off [in 1947]. But the fans wouldn't stand for it . . . So Boudreau made up his mind then to prove I was a jerk. That's just what he did."

In St. Louis, ex-Postmaster General Bob Hannegan stepped down last week after little more than a year as president of the Cardinals, and sold out to his partner for a rumored $1,000,000. The new president and majority stockholder (90%): Fred M. Saigh Jr., 43, St. Louis lawyer and big-time real-estate operator. Said Saigh: "I have decided there is no mystery about baseball. It's just like any other business; you have to have experts in all departments."

* But not the biggest income. On a salary-bonus arrangement, Pitcher Bob Feller made $82,000 last year. Feller (who won 19, lost 15 in a disappointing 1948 season) was still dickering with Veeck over his 1949 contract.

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