Success Quote by Bill Veeck

Veeck frames a moment of managerial theater with a grin and a shrug, and that combination is the tell. The “Falstaff people” aren’t just coworkers or fans; they’re cast as a boozy, Shakespearean chorus of hopefuls, “romantics all,” primed to believe in the next big stunt, the next inspired pivot. By naming them that way, he flatters and gently needles them at once: they want magic, and he knows they want it.

The sentence hinges on anticipation as a commodity. “They were so anxious… they could hardly bear to wait” describes not an audience patiently evaluating a plan, but a crowd hungry for narrative. Veeck, the baseball owner famous for promotions and showmanship, understood that suspense is itself a kind of product. Two weeks becomes a runway for gossip, expectation, and the idea that something consequential is brewing whether or not the details exist yet.

Then he punctures the balloon with the last line: “I was rather anxious to find out what I was going to do, too.” It’s self-deprecation, but it’s also a confession about how decision-making often actually happens in business and sports: improvisation dressed up as destiny. The subtext is that leadership is frequently retroactive storytelling. You project certainty because everyone around you needs a plot; you catch up to your own legend in real time.

What makes it work is the double perspective: Veeck is both ringmaster and fellow spectator. He’s selling wonder while admitting the wiring backstage is still loose.