Negro Leagues Baseball Museum deftly dusts itself off from pandemic knockdown pitch
For all the plans punctured in what was to be a year-long national celebration of the founding of the Negro Leagues in Kansas City 100 years ago, infinite optimist Bob Kendrick still dared to imagine one majestic development could transcend it all.
Knowing that Buck O’Neil’s name had been discussed by the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Eras Committees and believed to be on the ballot, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum envisioned the “cascade of emotions” to be unleashed if O’Neil at long last got his due recognition in the Hall of Fame to expunge the shattering snub of 2006.
Luckily, Kendrick also braced himself for a short-circuiting of that “light at the end of the tunnel” of this hideous year … and was girded last month when the Hall of Fame announced it would reschedule this winter’s “Era Committee elections as a result of uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
So what might have been so soothing for so many was another wound.
Punctuating a year of postponed events, another wave of loss arrived with the deaths of Chadwick Boseman (to whom Kendrick became attached after he played Jackie Robinson in “42”), Lou Brock (a protege of Buck’s and great friend to the NLBM) and former Negro Leagues player Walt Owens as the number of surviving players continues its inevitable decline.
Yet all that anguish was just part of a call of the moment for Kendrick.
After all, he is presiding over what he considers a sacred trust to preserve legacies and animate a history that is as much about civil rights as baseball.
And if the essential story of the Negro Leagues is about perseverance and resolve, and if the fundamental work of the NLBM is honoring Buck’s prime directive “that we would be remembered,” then the work is more imperative than ever.
Even amid the unfathomable challenges of 2020, particularly the COVID-19 coronavirus for which Kendrick invoked what he called “a bad baseball analogy” that nonetheless resonates.
The virus, he said, is that “big nasty right-hander who just threw one high and tight and knocked you down,” he said, smiling. “But then you’ve got to get right back in the batter’s box, dust yourself off and figure out how you’re going to hit this sucker.
“And that’s what we’ve been doing: figuring out how to hit the sucker.”
Accordingly, Kendrick figures much of what had to be pushed back will be part of “Negro Leagues 101” instead of a centennial celebration.
And he is delighted by the upcoming unveiling of what on social media he called “A STREETCAR NAMED BUCK!” (as well as a vintage Kansas City Monarchs “barnstorming bus”) in cooperation with Ride KC.
Some details remain in development, but Kendrick felt confident saying he could “envision a lot of selfies being taken” with the streetcar that will essentially be turned into a 1942 Monarchs jersey.
(The fundraising goal is $20,000, Kendrick said, and donations can be made through the NLBM website and down the main page to “WRAPPED WITH HEART: RIDE KC SUPPORTS THE NEGRO LEAGUES).
Then there was this: On Saturday at the museum, with Kendrick joined by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) in person and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) via video, they announced the fruition of a project a year in the making: the “Negro Leagues Baseball Centennial Commemorative Coin Act.”
With the design still to be determined and a fund-raising initiative ahead, the coin likely won’t be minted until 2022. But if the possibilities are fully realized, Kendrick said, it could mean up to $12 million for the museum. That could cement growth and long-term sustainability.
So, yes, Kendrick said, they will be “begging” soon for donations in this direction, too.
“But we’re cheerful beggars,” he said, smiling, at the news conference.
That opportunity is all the more meaningful in this divisive political time: Some 79 of 100 senators and 290 of 435 in the house, Cleaver said, backed this distinct recognition for a museum whose broader mission is to promote tolerance, diversity and inclusion.
“So there’s bipartisan representation, which is hard to do,” Kendrick said, noting others involved in introducing the legislation were Rep. Steve Sivers (R-Ohio) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va., and a Kansas City native).
With a laugh, he added, “Only the Negro Leagues … can bring both sides of the aisle together.”
Then there was the “Tipping Your Cap” campaign to salute the Negro Leagues that began in late June. The initial notion had been to do it in stadiums, of course. Instead, it went viral online.
“And if we’d have done it in stadiums, I don’t know that we would have had four U.S. presidents engaged in this manner. Or Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan and Billie Jean King …” he said.
Then, in mid-August, the national day of recognition Kendrick had once thought dead was anything but.
“To see the (Negro Leagues) trending on social media on August 16, it was beyon imagination …” he said. “On that day, they were being remembered in ways that I don’t think even Buck O’Neil could have envisioned.”
None of that obscured the profound losses, of course.
“But you try to always find a way to bring light out of darkness,” said Kendrick, later adding, “I don’t ever want to become numb to or desensitized to feeling for those who we do love and lose.”
Such as with Boseman, the exceptional young actor who died at age 43. Most recently, he was known for his role as T’Challa in “Black Panther,” which Kendrick described as “essentially for the first time an African-American superhero comes to life on the big screen.”
But he might have used the same phrasing for Boseman’s role as Robinson in “42.”
“He became Jackie Robinson,” he said.
Playfully adding that Boseman might have brought Robinson more to life in cinema than Robinson had playing himself in “The Jackie Robinson Story” in 1950, Kendrick noted the Monarchs jersey and cap Boseman wore in the movie (Robinson played for the Monarchs in 1945) now are in the museum.
“It was special then,” he said. “It’s even more special now.”
While also lamenting the deaths of Tom Seaver, a boyhood favorite of his, and legendary basketball coach John Thompson, with whom Kendrick said Buck had “a wonderful relationship,” Kendrick was particularly moved by the loss of Brock.
Kendrick keeps in his office a portrait of O’Neil with his arms around “surrogate sons” Ernie Banks and Brock when they all were with the Cubs before he was traded to the Cardinals. That was with Buck’s blessing, Kendrick added, knowing it was best for Brock’s career.
Buck had scouted and mentored Brock. And he became so much like Buck, Kendrick said, that “if you knew Lou Brock you knew Buck O’Neil even if you didn’t know Buck.”
No wonder a heavy-hearted Kendrick was grateful to feel Buck’s calming presence before he spoke at the service at Greater Grace Church in Ferguson, Missouri … just as Buck had provided right before Kendrick spoke at his own funeral.
Just outside the museum is another source of hope within the despair of this year: one of six “Black Lives Matter” murals painted around the city earlier this month. Kendrick is pleased it’s there, paying tribute to the history of the 18th and Vine District.
Like the museum itself, it stands against the attempted denials and deflections of painful history and truths.
“We hope that people won’t lose sight of what the real narrative is,” he said, noting the voices warping the meaning of the movement much as they misrepresented the stance of Colin Kaepernick.
Meanwhile, in this strange but clarifying time, the enduring narrative of the museum and those it commemorates prevails in ways we might all heed: You just try to make a way even when there seemingly is no way.
“If you are going to be a steward of this story,” he said, “you can not wallow in self-pity.”