Waste No Tears for Me

The NY Times reports that Buck O’Neil, Negro Leagues Pioneer, Is Dead at 94:

For O’Neil, baseball represented a lifelong joy. “Nowadays, whenever us Negro leaguers put on the old uniforms for autograph-signings and such, you can just see the years peel away,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I’ve seen men lose 50 years in just a few hours. Baseball is better than sex. It is better than music, although I do believe jazz comes in a close second. It does fill you up.”

Wright Thompson of ESPN (whoever would have thought that I'd be citing ESPN on my site) reflects, O'Neil was the real 'voice' of America:

Buck O'Neil lived to see the white high school that wouldn't admit him open its doors to all people. He lived to see the kids he scouted turn into Hall of Famers. He lived, as he liked to say, to meet presidents from Truman to Clinton (and he lived to huuuuug Hillary).

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When he didn't get into the Hall of Fame this year, people rightfully howled. As the news reached him, a final denied dream in a life full of dreams denied, he just smiled. "God's been good to me," he said that day. "If I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck. Don't weep for Buck. No, man, be happy, be thankful." On a day that should have been the pinnacle of a life dedicated to helping others, he showed up at the podium in Cooperstown anyway to help honor the Negro Leaguers who did make the cut .

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Even though he wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame, his speech served as a reminder to the world about his accomplishments. He led the Negro Leagues in hitting. He won two titles as a Negro Leagues manager. As a scout for the Cubs, he signed Lou Brock to a contract; and in 1962, the Cubs made him the first black coach in the majors. But it was his final role, as ambassador, in Ken Burns' documentary about baseball and in countless rooms and auditoriums across the country, that defined him. He made America face its own painful history.

In March, I even wrote about his exclusion from the Hall of Fame. As I wrote in Hall of Shame, I'm hardly a baseball fan, but I liked his story and his spirit.

And even though he didn't get in the Hall of Fame, Blogger Gone Mild notes in Colbert Honors Buck O'Neil, that "Stephen Colbert just put a picture of local favorite Negro-leaguer Buck O'Neil on his mantel, proclaiming it a bigger honor than the Hall of Fame."

See also, LAist, Baseball Legend Buck O'Neil Dies at 95.

Tags: News, Buck O'Neil