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Saturday, October 07, 2006

R.I.P. Buck O'Neil
Posted by Jill | 9:28 AM
When someone lives to be 94, it's hard to regard that person's death as a tragedy. 94 is a good, long run, especially when you enjoyed every minute, even the bad ones, the way Buck O'Neil did. But still, it's hard not to be sad today.

Mr. Brilliant used to tell me about his grandfather in the Midwest, who used to go to Negro League games because they was more interesting and more fun to watch than the then-all-white leagues. But for many of us, our first real exposure to the old Negro Leagues was in Ken Burns' series Baseball, in which Buck O'Neil figured prominently. The man's warmth and love for the game were palpable, and it is that series which gave O'Neil a late-life resurgence in the public consciousness. I'll leave it to the obituary writers to recap O'Neil's baseball career and his life, but as the keeper of the flame for all those players whose achievements might otherwise have been forgotten, O'Neil's status as one of the pivotal figures in the history of American baseball is self-evident.

That the baseball writers refused to include O'Neil among the 17 Negro Leagues figures who were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame last February is a dark spot on the Hall. As Keith Olbermann wrote at the time:

Snubbing Minoso and O'Neil -- apparently for all time -- is extraordinary enough. But only baseball could make it worse. In honoring the Negro Leagues -- it managed to exclude O'Neill and Minoso -- but did elect two white people.

James Leslie Wilkinson was the founder of those Kansas City Monarchs -- Jackie Robinson's team before he broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wilkinson was a white businessman. And today's election also made a Hall of Famer out of Effa Manley... She was the owner of the Newark Eagles of the Negro American League. It sounds almost impossible to believe -- but she too was white -- married to a black man -- and she pretended to be -- as the term was, then, "passed" -- as a light-skinned black.

Most of the 17 electees yesterday were entirely deserving. Such legendary figures as Sol White and Biz Mackey and Jose Mendez will achieve in death and in the Hall of Fame something they were denied in life. Just to twist the knife a little further into Buck O'Neil, the special committee elected Alex Pompez, owner of the New York Cubans team... Also an organized crime figure... Part of the mob of the infamous '30s gangster Dutch Schultz... Indicted in this country and Mexico for racketeering.

He's in the Hall of Fame. For all time. Buck O'Neil is not. It is not merely indefensible. For all the many stupid things the Baseball Hall of Fame has ever done... This is the worst.


Despite being snubbed by these armchair quarterbacks -- or pitchers or outfielders or shortstops -- most of whom never picked up a ball in their lives, let alone experiencing the dangers of riding team buses through the deep South in the Jim Crow era, O'Neil never held a pity party, nor did he allow these nimrods to dampen his love of the game. In July of this year, at 94, he became the oldest man ever to play in a professional baseball game, going 0-for-2 with two walks in a Northern League all-star game.

"Shed no tears for Buck," he said after being snubbed by the baseball writers. "No, no. Ol' God's been good to me. You can see that, don't you? If I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all I need. Just keep loving ol' Buck."

And we do.

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter druidbros for this obituary in the K.C. Star.
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