From Old Slave Mart in Charleston to Cooperstown, Buck O’Neil’s induction resonates
When I was living in St. Louis in 2001, I had occasion to travel to Kansas City to spend a few hours with Buck O’Neil at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum as part of a project we were doing on race and sports.
We spoke about many things that day, including his recollection of Satchel Paige once arranging for them to visit the Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
At a site where thousands of slaves from Africa had been auctioned, the typically chatty duo stood silently for perhaps a half hour, O’Neil recalled. Then Paige said, “I get the feeling I’ve been here before.”
“I said, ‘Me, too, Satch,’” O’Neil recalled. “See, this is where his great-grandfather could have been auctioned off. It was where my great-grandmother might have been auctioned off.”
That tale came to mind for me on Sunday, when O’Neil at last was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He was ushered in by niece Dr. Angela Terry, who said his “core was brotherly love” — a notion amplified on the plaque bearing his name:
“CHARACTER, INTEGRITY AND DIGNITY DEFINED A LIFE DEDICATED TO BASEBALL …” it read, in part. “IN LATER LIFE, GAVE VOICE TO THE NEGRO LEAGUES, ELOQUENTLY PRESERVING ITS CULTURE AND LEGENDS.”
That scene Buck set in my visit with him didn’t come to mind just because it was easy to get the feeling he was right here on Sunday.
Like NLBM president Bob Kendrick had anticipated and felt since the beginning of the day: The breakfast place across the street turning out to be closed led to a chance meeting with a family from New Hampshire that ultimately invited him to join them at a different restaurant.
That was the spirit of Buck, he assumed.
“And I still feel it,” he said on the field after the ceremony.
And that Charleston story didn’t surface because we actually knew he had been on this site before — most memorably in 2006 when he spoke on behalf of the 17 former Negro Leagues players and executives who were recognized posthumously even after he was jilted at the altar.
No, that memory came to mind because from that tale in Charleston to this moment speaks to the arc and essence of his epic journey — a legacy now rekindled, even multiplied, for the attention and consideration of new generations.
That span helps explain the significance of his story and that of the NLBM itself.
Reminded of that story, Kendrick said, “I don’t know if you can tell Buck’s story without including that element. … Buck O’Neil was the grandson of enslaved people who helped impart change in our society and who was blessed to live long enough to enjoy that change and continue to empower others to help invoke change.
“And so he was the ultimate change agent, and that day that you’re reflecting on where he and Satchel are standing in that warehouse … is the embodiment of the essence of who Buck O’Neil was.”
Because of who he would become and mean to so many by virtue of his resolve and attitude.
Because of the role he played in building a bridge from a world in which the grandson of enslaved people and son of a sawmill worker and celery field foreman in Sarasota, Florida, had no place to go to school after eighth grade less than 100 years ago.
“Because the powers that be figured I didn’t need any more than that to be a shoeshine boy or work on the farm or be a waiter,” he said that day.
The powers that be also didn’t figure Buck, or any other Black men, were worthy of playing in their version of the major leagues — deprived as they were of stars who would have elevated the play well before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 with the Dodgers, and the rest of baseball gradually, often grudgingly, followed.
So they created a path and a league of their own, founded in Kansas City in 1920 and kept vibrant and alive at the NLBM that was Buck’s dream and is animated to this day by Kendrick, who later this week will unveil ambitious specifics of a “Thanks A Million Buck” campaign.
“‘You won’t let me play with you in the major leagues,’” as Kendrick often says, “‘I’ll create my own.’”
So even while America was imposing segregation and racism, he noted Saturday, the mission of the Negro Leagues also was “the American spirit” at its finest.
And the continued education of that juxtaposition, among all the other complexities of race issues in America, is at the heart of the NLBM and why it matters on so many levels — including as a virtual civil rights institute.
So that’s why this recognition of Buck resonates on numerous levels.
If Stan Musial was “baseball’s perfect warrior” and “baseball’s perfect knight,” as commissioner Ford Frick called him, then perhaps Buck is no less the game’s perfect ambassador and perfect example and now has the plaque to enhance his statue and stature at the Hall of Fame.
For the Negro Leagues and beyond from a man Bob Costas in Cooperstown on Saturday called “an American treasure” and Ken Burns in a phone call last week said now would elevate Cooperstown itself.
“The legacy is so far beyond baseball,” said Royals owner John Sherman, who wore a Kansas City Monarchs hat in honor of Buck during the ceremony. He later added, “It’s more than words can describe.”
Others inducted on Sunday were David Ortiz, Jim Kaat, Gil Hodges, Tony Oliva, Bud Fowler, a pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball pioneer and Minnie Minoso, a former Negro Leagues player to whom Kendrick often refers as the “Latino Jackie Robinson.”
While Kendrick surely was disappointed not to have the chance to speak on Buck’s behalf, something he was uniquely suited to do, he understood the Hall of Fame protocol that led to family being given preference.
And the days he initially had mixed feelings about because Buck couldn’t be here in person, he said, turned out “far more amazing than I could have imagined.”
That was largely because he could feel something happening in the way people were energized over Buck.
“Oh, there’s a movement. And it’s felt that way this entire weekend, like there’s this Buck O’Neil movement,” he said. “And I’m thrilled and honored to be a part of that movement and, I guess in some ways, help lead that movement.
“And hopefully it will do exactly what Buck would have wanted it to do: elevate his museum into a position where we will be able to grow it substantially.
“So that … future generations will have that opportunity to learn this history, be inspired by this history and be empowered to continue to invoke this level of change that Buck O’Neil always believed in.
“That he always believed was possible.”
Possible, yes, but not assured.
Which is another reason this recognition, and this enterprise, remain so vital now.
“The life lessons that stem from this story of triumph over adversity are maybe more meaningful right now than ever before,” Kendrick said Saturday, “because of some of the things we thought had moved beyond, they’re rearing their ugly heads again.”
In ways we must remember, including why the Negro Leagues were necessary in the first place that, in fact, harken back to Charleston.
This story was originally published July 24, 2022 at 6:23 PM.