Who is Buck O’Neil, might you ask? I think he is a legend, who carried the torch, at the least one of them.
He was the hero that all former and current MLB’s players still look up to. Me myself, I have not heard of Buck, until my first visit to Kansas City’s Negro Baseball League Museum, in Missouri.
And that started my curiosity about the Negro Baseball League. In addition to the jersey a friend and his wife bought me prior to that.
The jersey was a replica of the St Louis Stars #14, 1922-43. Moreover, this jersey had gotten a lot of heads turned in St Louis. Reason so, a lot of people of color only know about MLB, they could care less about our history in the game.
Buck had been passed up by the committee several times in regards to being inducted.
Quoted by AOL: It’s been a long time coming for O’Neil, the Kansas City Monarchs star player and manager who was passed over for the Hall of Fame shortly before his death in 2006. O’Neil’s second chance came via an Early Baseball Era ballot of 10 individuals. He was one of two on the ballot elected by a 16-member panel.
Yet posthumously, Buck O’Neil was inducted in The National Baseball League Hall of Fame. It was a pleasant Sunday, July 24, 2022, in Coopertown, NY., fans, family and friends witnessed a historic moment.
O’Neil died in October 2006 at the age of 94 after persevering through withering racism, helping found Kansas City’s signature Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and inspiring untold generations worldwide.
John Jordan O’Neil, aka as “Buck,” took his rightful place among baseball’s greatest players in Cooperstown, New York last Sunday.
