Why the ‘one place to be this Sunday’ is the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Before a national television audience on Sunday night at Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs will play a pivotal AFC West game against the Broncos. And, sure, that game deserves the ample spotlight it will get.
But maybe the most enduringly stirring place to be on Sunday in Kansas City will be the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum a couple hours before. Because that’s where NLBM president Bob Kendrick, friends of the museum and about anyone who wants to be there will gather to hear the verdict on whether Buck O’Neil (being considered along with seven other former Negro Leagues players) finally is anointed for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
From that epicenter of all things Buck, where the program will begin at 4 p.m. with a conversation between Kendrick and Kansas City Sports Commission president Kathy Nelson, the story will reverberate across the nation when the announcement from Florida is made at approximately 5 p.m. on MLB Network.
“There’s one place to be this Sunday,” renowned documentarian Ken Burns, whose “Baseball” series enshrined O’Neil in another way, wrote in a retweet of the NLBM’s “Selection Sunday” invitation announcement. “Buck was like a father to me. I’m praying to the baseball gods that he’s selected.”
As it happens, there will be other such occasions that day. That includes a watch party being hosted in Overland Park by esteemed baseball historian Phil S. Dixon, who as part of the Special Early Baseball Overview Committee helped determine who would be on the ballot that includes O’Neil.
He’ll be joined by distinguished contemporaries Larry Lester and Lloyd Johnson in a reunion of three founding members of the NLBM.
“I feel like people should be having these kind of events all over the country,” said Dixon, who can be contacted for details and to RSVP at drkcdixon05@gmail.com.
Still, no one is making any assumptions given the heartbreak of 2006, when Buck’s case was widely believed to be a cinch …
Only for him to be passed over by a special committee of 12 Black baseball scholars and historians whose judgment evoked deep emotions and controversy.
He died months later, and no story about then vs. now can be properly told without acknowledging that the prospect of honoring him posthumously doesn’t have quite the same joy to it.
But the story of the Negro Leagues and the integration of the game is about perseverance and resilience and even, alas, the notion of better late than never.
Meanwhile, even if Buck isn’t tangibly here for this next at-bat, his buoyant spirit thrives to this day through his vast fan base, in the heartbeat of the museum and via the aura of Kendrick — who is very much his own person yet also one who aspires to be more Buck-like.
That includes frequently reminding himself how Buck ever-so-graciously handled that piercing day and even went on to speak on behalf of those who were called to the Hall.
“So he kind of saved that moment in many regards,” Kendrick said, “with his willingness to be there to bring those 17 who were dead back to life for baseball fans who had no idea who they were.”
Now, 15 years after what would be Buck’s last public-speaking appearance and his death later that year, this is a chance to bring him back to the forefront in another way that would resonate near and far.
You can bet there would still be widespread euphoria over Buck’s election, particularly in Kansas City — which last sent one of its own to Cooperstown in 1999 when George Brett was inducted.
Understanding that collective attachment to Buck, whom Dixon described as perhaps the lone personal link to the Negro Leagues days for so many over his 94 years, helps explain why Kendrick and the NLBM decided to do something that might seem natural but actually is remarkable.
Even knowing that Buck could be shut out again and that the possibility exists that no one from the Negro Leagues will be ratified into the rarefied this time around, they still have invited the public to attend and will livestream the broadcast (on Facebook).
For better or for worse as they anxiously await the results from the Hall of Fame’s 16-member Early Baseball Era (before 1950) Committee, which will be voting on a 10-man group that includes seven Negro Leagues players in the committee’s last meeting for a decade.
Another former Negro Leagues player, Minnie Minoso, is among 10 players under consideration by a separate 16-member Golden Days Era (1950-1969) Committee.
Cooperstown-bound will be the candidates who receive votes on 75 percent of the ballots cast by the electors, who can vote for as few as zero and as many as four candidates.
Handicapping that makes for a lot of math and too many permutations to comprehend. About all Kendrick is certain of is that all 16 people aren’t going to vote for the same four people.
So Sunday, alas, could as easily be about anticlimax as celebration. But Kendrick looks at congregating with the community at Buck’s museum as the best of all worlds regardless of what happens.
“I’ll either have a whole bunch of people to hug or a whole bunch of shoulders to cry on,” he said, laughing.
More seriously, though, the point is to share in the moment … whatever the moment brings.
“Because this is history,” he said. “Whether it’s good or bad remains to be seen. But it is still history, and it’s still a moment in time in this organization’s history. We need to capture that …
“(And) we’ll all be part of it together.”
While Kendrick figures they won’t turn anyone away, the museum asks that anyone interested in attending RSVP online: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hall-of-fame-selection-sunday-tickets-218908781057.
In anticipation of what awaits, Kendrick has been stranded in a place to which many who want something badly probably might relate: In a sense, he’s been in a time warp ever since he first saw the press release announcing the candidates … and his eyes moved so fast over the text that he didn’t see Buck’s name on it the first time through.
Between then and now and Sunday afternoon, he’s been both trying to distract himself and wanting to get this over with, both eager to meet the moment and wary of its arrival.
On one hand, he says, “I absolutely believe that it’s going to happen this time.” On the other, he adds with a laugh, “When we come to talk about trusting my gut, I don’t know if I can trust my gut any more.”
One way or another, he’s more concerned this time simply because of what happened last time. While Dixon puts it bluntly, “They had the wrong people voting” then, Kendrick is forever swayed that you can’t know until you know.
When he pauses to consider the names of the voters released earlier this week, Kendrick can feel reassured that the group includes a number of people who had relationships with Buck or the museum and understand the broader picture (particularly Ozzie Smith, who has called Buck his “good friend,” Ferguson Jenkins, who along with Smith in 2015 was inducted into the NLBM’s “Hall of Game,” and former Royals general manager John Schuerholz, who came back to Kansas City from Atlanta for Buck’s funeral).
But he also can only guess how some would view Buck and the others from the Early Baseball Era that include the fascinating likes of John Donaldson of Glasgow, Missouri; Bud Fowler, believed to be the Black man to play pro baseball back in 1878; Vic Harris; Grant “Home Run” Johnson; Dick “Cannonball” Redding and George Scales.
Among that group and the Cuban-born Minoso, whom Kendrick likes to call “the Latino Jackie Robinson,” Dixon says there might be seven better ballplayers than O’Neil.
Then again, he said with a laugh, there are players in the Hall of Fame who weren’t as good as Buck. And more to the point, his candidacy is uniquely based on a lifetime of achievements in the game, none more meaningful than his unswerving ambassadorship for it.
“When you measure his overall impact on individuals who are still around and still involved with the game and his impact as a personality within the game,” Dixon said, “he becomes in a class by himself.”
A class that doesn’t fit in a traditional box of criteria.
“No, no, you just look at what he gave us: You look at the entire body,” Kendrick said. “If people take that into account, I absolutely believe he gets in. If there’s any concern about looking at a singular aspect of his career, then that could be problematic.”
Dixon’s sense is that there were people in “pretty high places” who feel like it was a big mistake in 2006 not to select Buck, whom baseball soon recognized in meaningful ways with a life-sized statue in his likeness greeting visitors at the Hall of Fame and by the creation of the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.
Each of those has what Kendrick recently called “perpetuity” to them. Permanent and prominent as those are, though, they still ring incomplete without a plaque within that directly testifies to his place among those immortalized for their impact on the game.
That’s why at the NLBM on Sunday they’ll be waiting with some trepidation … but also fortified by the unrelenting hope and yearning that the museum represents and wants to share with all of us.
This story was originally published December 3, 2021 at 3:09 PM.