Buck O’Neil Dies At Age 94
Baseball legend Buck O’Neil died earlier today. He was 94 years old.
Buck O’Neil, a star first baseman and manager in the Negro leagues and a pioneering scout and coach in the major leagues who devoted the final decade of his life to chronicling the lost world of black baseball, died last night in Kansas City, Mo. He was 94.
Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, reported the death last night, according to The Associated Press. O’Neil entered the hospital in August but was released after a few days. He was readmitted Sept. 17, The Associated Press said.
O’Neil was a smooth fielder and a two-time league-leading hitter with the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the Negro leagues’ most acclaimed teams, and he also managed them. He spent more than three decades working in the Chicago Cubs’ system, becoming one of organized baseball’s first black scouts and then the first black coach in the majors. In all, his baseball career spanned seven decades.
A great quote:
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.�
6 Responses to “Buck O’Neil Dies At Age 94”
Your ctitque of American politics applies to the Hall of Fame snub for O’Neil.
Even in the twilight of his life, after being excluded from the hallowed halls of Cooperstown wrongly, he carried himself with dignity, wisdom, and a general sense of joy.
We could all learn a lot from Buck.
En Taro O’Neill.
Learn what you can from these people. They are a generation almost gone.
Great Post! Keep on posting such great stories! He was a great man.
Yesterday was a very bad day. I live in metro KC and had seen Buck in person a couple of times and of course there’s a lot of coverage about him on the local news. He was a truly great man and great gentleman. His grace after being snubbed for the Hall of Fame was truly amazing. You can guess how that decision went over in KC but Buck (Somehow calling him anything else just doesn’t seem to fit. He didn’t care for being called Mr. O’Neil.) encouraged everyone to be gracious about it.
Besides getting that bad news there was even more for some of us. I am a science fiction fan who’s been active in attending SF conventions (Not Trek, SF as in the written word.) for 30 years. Not only did we lose Buck O’Neil yesterday (There’s a fair number of baseball fans in our SF club.) but Wilson Tucker, a man just a couple of years younger than Buck who meant a great deal to many in the science fiction community in general but even more to the fan groups in Kansas City and Saint Louis also passed away. I had just found out about Tucker, who was the first person I ever met at a science fiction convention an hour before the news about Buck O’Neil broke. Tucker had been active in science fiction since 1939, the very beginning of organized fandom. I think that he and Buck O’Neil were very similar in some ways. They were both gracious gentlemen of an old school that far too few appreciate most of the time.
If you’re interested in more of the take from those who knew him best here’s an article from the KC Star. You might have to do a free registration.