Hey cwsox, what trades in the Veeck 70's era are you talking about? I'll give you that the 60's Sox trades really hurt, but who did we trade away in the 70's? I know about Goose-Forster for Zisk, but we would have lost those guys anyway, just like we did Zisk. That trade was the foundation for the 77 Hitmen, which was one of the funnest Sox seasons ever. The team he left for the JR-EE regime had some pretty good young players on it that helped set up the '83 team.
As for Veeck gutting the Browns, that team never had anything to gut. In fact, and this is scary now that I think of it, the Browns situation with the Cardinals reminds me of the current Sox-Cubs predicament.