There had been a couple of phone conversations with Mike Veeck over the previous six months. The first was in early winter and the melancholy in his voice was clear. The second came when I was in Florida for spring training, and the famous Veeck spirit remained hard to detect.
We talked again Friday. He's not yet back fully, might never be, but this time he was quicker with the humor.
On Sept. 30, the warrior named Rebecca Veeck, 27, the only daughter of Mike and Libby, died from a long-term attack of the nervous system called Batten disease. At age 7, Rebecca was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease that would take away her sight, and later came news that it was something worse:
Batten is always fatal, with Rebecca's 27 years at the far end of the spectrum for survival.
In mid-September 2019, the 15th to be exact, Veeck's St. Paul Saints won the American Association championship for the first time in the league's 15 seasons — the team's first title since its last season in the Northern League in 2004.
Mike wasn't there. Rebecca was in her final days and he was with his daughter and Libby.
It's hard to be off-the-wall, laugh-at-the-ready Veeck when you're a wreck after the loss of a wondrous child. He was giving it a better shot Friday, and making sure to offer up the battle cry that has served the Saints since they surfaced at Midway Stadium in 1993:
"Fun is good."