The Soul of Baseball (21 page)

Then it was time for Buck to speak. In his statement, the one he never saw, he told the committee that his name was John Jordan O’Neil but most people called him Buck. He was the grandson of a slave, and that was where he got the name O’Neil. He knew his grandfather Julius, who had worked the cotton fields in a stretch of the Carolinas he never tried to find when he got old. Julius was a proud man. He still had faith. That was what stuck with young Buck. His grandfather still believed that the world was good.

In the statement, Buck talked about those men who had played baseball before Jackie Robinson, and how they played a free-form style of baseball—something close to jazz. The men stole third, stole home, bunted, stretched singles into doubles, doubles into triples. There was always movement on the field, movement and talk, taunts, jokes, revenge, laughter, threats, challenges. Some games were played under portable lights that sounded like circular saws buzzing. On Easter Sunday, men wore new straw boaters to the games, and on Labor Day they threw those boaters on the field after the final out. The players, according to Buck’s statement, dressed and drove in style. “We played good ball, entertained crowds, fed our families, and proudly lived our separate lives,” it read.

In the statement, Buck talked about the times when the players could not find a place to eat or sleep. He talked about separate bathrooms and drinking fountains. There was no high school for Buck O’Neil to attend, the biggest regret of his life. “During my ninety-four years I have learned a lot,” the statement read. “But most importantly I have learned that love and education heal all wounds.” In the statement, he asked for the museum to be given its national designation. He called this “critical to our ability to preserve and display this important time in American history.”

But, as you know, Buck never saw the statement.

“I’m ninety-four years old,” Buck said to three members of the committee. “Good black don’t crack.”

T
HERE WERE ACTUALLY
only two members of the committee there to hear Buck. A third senator—Ohio’s Mike DeWine—had come in. “It’s wonderful to have the Honorable Mike DeWine with us,” Senator Akaka said.

“I’m here to listen to Buck O’Neil,” DeWine said.

Buck told them that he had been a lot of places and he had done a lot of things. He hit for the cycle. He made a hole in one in golf. He shook hands with President Truman. He shook hands with President Clinton. “And I hugged Hillary,” he said.

“But I’d rather be right here, right now, than anyplace I’ve ever been in my whole life,” he said. “This right here is one of the proudest days of my life.”

Then, in words very different from the statement, he spoke about the Negro Leagues and how men denied their place in America created their own America. “This is the greatest country in the world,” Buck said. “I’ve been all over the world. But you can’t beat the US of A. Here you can be whatever you want to be.”

He paused and looked around the room.

“I’m living proof of that,” Buck said softly.

He told the committee members that Negro Leaguers could really play ball. He told them it wasn’t a sad time. “We overcame, see,” he said. “That’s the lesson of the Negro Leagues.” When Buck finished speaking, people from all over the Capitol rushed over to get a handshake, an autograph, a photo. Buck turned and smiled and asked, “How’d I do?”

“That was amazing,” Senator Talent said. Buck shook his head.

“There was something else I wanted to say,” he said, “but I couldn’t figure out exactly how to say it.”

B
UCK HAD TO
sit down. The Washington rush finally overtook him. Aides rushed over and asked if he wanted water. Buck said no. He just needed a few minutes of calm. Someone asked if he wanted to go see Hillary Clinton, who was just down the hall. Buck shook his head. “I’ll see her next time I testify before Congress,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Out in the halls, people of various ages wore black. Lights were on in the offices, though it was still the afternoon—the skies had grown dark and raindrops slapped against the windows. Two men stood in a corner and talked in whispers, the iconic image of backroom Washington dealings. Buck closed his eyes and tried to shut it all out. After a few seconds, he was told the car had arrived, and everyone stood up.

“Hold on for a second, hold on,” Buck said, and he pointed at a television nearby. “You know something funny? Look at that television. You know, if the Willie Mays catch was on right now—the one from the World Series—everyone would stop and watch it.”

Everybody around stopped and listened to Buck. He was talking about the catch Mays made at the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series, the one where he turned his back and raced toward the wall on a long ball hit by Vic Wertz. Mays ran full speed to a spot and somehow caught the ball over his head without even looking back. His hat flew off. And then, in one motion, Mays whirled and threw the ball back to the infield. Jack Brickhouse, the announcer, screamed that it must have looked like an optical illusion to a lot of people. More than fifty years later, most people would say it was the greatest catch ever made.

“How many times have we all seen that catch?” Buck asked. “And yet, if Willie Mays was up there on the television, this whole place would come to a stop.”

 

If Willie was up there

People would stop making laws.

They would stop running.

They would stop arguing about

Little things

Or big things.

No Democrat or Republican,

No black and white,

No North or South.

Everyone would just stop,

Watch the TV,

Watch Willie Mays make that catch.

That’s baseball, man.

 

Buck smiled, shook some hands, and walked out to the car. After all this time, he had come to Washington and said what he wanted to say.

B
uck O’Neil jolted awake when the telephone rang. He was home in Kansas City. The voice on the other end claimed to be a radio producer and he asked if Buck could do a quick interview. Buck could not remember saying yes, but in the next instant, there was a radio host on the line with that familiar deep voice Buck had heard thousands of times in every city in America. The radio voice asked him if he was excited about going into the Hall of Fame.

“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” Buck said.

“What do you think your reaction will be when you get the word?”

“Excited,” Buck said. “I’m sure I’ll be excited.”

Buck got out of bed. He walked on the treadmill for a few moments, though his heart was already beating fast. Buck thought about what to wear—this was always a big decision. He decided to go informal. He put on a pair of jeans, a Kansas City Monarchs jersey, a Kansas City Monarchs bomber jacket, and a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum hat. “This is baseball,” he said.

He showed up at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at 10
A.M.
sharp. He asked Bob Kendrick, “When will word come?”

“About eleven
A.M.
”

“All right, then, I’m going to make a few phone calls,” Buck said. He reached into his wallet and shuffled through dozens of business cards and scraps of paper. He found a number and dialed it on a white phone nearby. It took him two tries to dial it right. He waited a long time for someone to answer, and when someone did, he jumped right into the conversation: “It’s Buck. If the vote goes my way, I’ll be coming to see you. Yeah…. I’ve missed you so much too…. Yeah. Come a long way from those days. Ha ha ha…. Yeah.”

He hung up. He said that was his cousin. She was ninety-three, one year younger than he was. And years ago, when they were both young in Sarasota, she used to play catch with him.

N
EWSPAPER STORIES OFTEN
follow a theme. Most of the stories leading into this day would have fit under the headline
BUCK O’NEIL AND OTHERS TO ENTER BASEBALL HALL OF FAME.
Buck had involuntarily overpowered the day. The Baseball Hall of Fame decided to right some wrongs and induct some of the great Negro Leagues players and contributors who had been overlooked. They put together a panel of twelve Negro Leagues experts—academics, writers, historians—and gave them free rein. Elect at will, the Hall of Fame said. Make things right.

The panel put together a ballot of thirty-nine players, managers, and executives from the Negro Leagues. The ballot burst with stories—there were many great players, shady characters, heartbroken men, a single woman—but focus turned to Buck O’Neil.

“You know why that is,” Buck said. “Because I’m alive.”

This was true. Only two men on the ballot—Buck and Minnie Minoso—were still living. But there was something else too. For so many years, Buck had traveled the country talking about the Negro Leagues. He had done countless interviews. He had appeared on every rowdy morning show and spoken in every whispered Negro Leagues documentary. He had told his stories to David Letterman and Ken Burns and Jim Rome. He had been quoted in virtually every obituary of every man who had played in the Negro Leagues. Buck had, in fact, become the Negro Leagues to millions of Americans. He kept the Negro Leagues’ reality fresh and vibrant. Yes, sure, it would be nice to get a few deceased men their rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Sonny Brown, the man who played breathtaking baseball in the sunshine, was on the ballot. Biz Mackey, who old-timers said was a better catcher than anyone who ever lived before or since, was on the list. There were others who were worthy. They were dead.

Buck was alive. This day was about Buck O’Neil. And everyone knew that, even Buck.

T
HE MUSEUM PHONE
did not ring at 11
A.M.
, and Buck settled in for a long wait. Buck said he had been on so many committees like this one. He said things never go quite like you expect. He did a television interview. He said that if the Hall of Fame call came, it would be one of the great moments of his life. “This is what every ballplayer dreams of,” he said. “I’m no different than anyone else when it comes to the Hall of Fame. I’m in awe.”

People wandered into the room to hug Buck and wish him luck. Lou Brock, one of the Hall of Famers Buck had signed as a scout, called. “I’m excited, Buck,” he said.

“Me too,” Buck said.

“You know I’m there for you.”

“Yes I do, Lou. Yes I do.”

“There are angels everywhere, Buck,” Lou said.

Buck smiled. That line went back to a story. When Lou Brock tried out for the college baseball team at Southern University, he felt scared to death. Brock knew he could run, but he did not believe he could hit against college pitchers. He felt sick at the tryouts. Everybody looked bigger than him, stronger than him. They all looked surer than him. He wanted to run away. Then he saw a young boy on the field. The boy could not have been more than twelve years old, but he acted as if being there and playing baseball with the giants was as natural as running with the wind. He played catch with everybody. He shouted out. He ran the bases as if he belonged.

Lou Brock thought:
If a little boy has the courage to run on this field, so do I
. Lou hit a long home run in those tryouts. He ran free. His future was in motion. In time, he would steal more bases than any Major League player. He would crack three thousand hits. And Lou Brock was at his best in the biggest games—Brock played in three World Series and he was a dominant presence in all three. He hit .391 in those games and stole fourteen bases. He felt sure.

Anyway, after the tryout, Brock wanted to thank the little boy for helping him overcome his fears. But when the tryout ended, he looked everywhere and could not find the boy. He went up to his new teammates and said, “What was that little boy’s name?”

And they said: “What little boy?”

“You know, the one that was running around here, playing catch with everybody.”

And they said: “There was no little boy out here.”

Lou Brock said he never saw that boy again. One time he told that story, Buck O’Neil was sitting next to him. Buck asked: “You think that boy was an angel?” Brock smiled.

“There are angels everywhere,” Buck said.

M
INUTES TICKED SLOWLY
by, as if all the clocks in the room were underwater. Buck tried to make time pass by talking about the events of the day. The Winter Olympics had just ended. The president’s approval ratings were down. The weathermen on television talked snow. Bob Kendrick tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to step outside for a moment.

“It’s not looking good,” Bob said. His expression locked halfway between enraged and hopeless.

“What do you mean?”

“I just got a call. They said that the committee had some sort of straw poll just to see where everything stands. And Buck is short some votes.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. I hear that former commissioner Fay Vincent has asked everyone on the committee to strongly consider how much Buck has done for baseball. But I don’t know if it’s going to make much of a difference. It doesn’t look good.”

Through the window of the room, the sky looked darker as Buck talked about how crazy bobsledders must be. He looked over, caught Bob’s eye, and kept on talking. “They just get in that sled and go a hundred miles an hour on ice? Sorry. Give me a bat and a ball.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to tell Buck if he doesn’t make it,” Bob said.

“He will make it,” I said.

“I hope so.”

Time crawled. There was too much to think about. How was it possible that this panel would not elect Buck O’Neil into the Hall of Fame? I played it over in my mind. Buck was not a great player. Maybe that was the problem. He had been a good player—he led the Negro Leagues in hitting once, almost did it again the next year, and he had prime years taken away by the war—but he was not a great player. Buck had always said he was not a Hall of Fame player, if that was the whole story.

But, of course, his playing was not the whole story, not even half of it. Keeping Buck out of the Baseball Hall of Fame because he was not a good enough player, I thought, would have been like keeping Leonardo da Vinci out of the Renaissance Hall of Fame because he was not a good enough inventor. Buck had been a great manager. He led the Monarchs to pennants. He sent more Negro Leagues players to the Major Leagues than anyone else. He would have been the first black manager in the Major Leagues, surely, but the Major Leagues were not ready for a black manager. Buck was, instead, the first African-American coach in the big leagues.

Buck was a great scout too. Scouts for some reason don’t have their place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but how could they ignore that as part of Buck O’Neil’s amazing life? And all of those were just appetizers—he was a spokesman for the game. The greatest spokesman. That was his legacy. He was the living voice of the Negro Leagues for more than fifty years. Could this not matter? For all those years—even now, at ninety-four—Buck traveled the country promoting baseball, selling it, teaching it to kids. How could they not vote him into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

As the minutes ticked slowly by and the clock approached noon, Buck seemed to understand what was happening. He said suddenly and with force: “You know something? I could play. I was no Josh Gibson, but I could play.” His face, for an instant, looked pained. It was the closest I had seen to Buck cracking. Bob and I looked at each other. And just like that, Buck’s face slackened, and his smile reemerged, and he talked again about everyday things.

A
NOTHER HALF HOUR
passed, and everyone in the museum began to understand and recognize the harsh truth. Buck said, “I’ll be all right either way, really.” Nobody believed him entirely. The Hall of Fame does not make a man’s career, of course. It is only a museum in a city where baseball did not begin. There were men inducted because they were born wealthy enough to buy baseball teams. There were others, deeply flawed men, inducted, though they tainted the game as much as they celebrated it. Cap Anson was a great player. He was also a virulent racist. He, more than any other man, drew the color line. Gaylord Perry was a great pitcher. He spit on baseballs and cheated to win. Ty Cobb attacked a fan. And so on.

So, no, the Hall of Fame would not define Buck O’Neil, but as he sat there in that dark room, and he stared at that slow-moving clock, it was clear that he wanted it. That was the heartbreaking part. Buck had not wanted much. He had suppressed his bitterness about missing out on the Major Leagues as a player and a manager. He had put away his anger over being ignored and tuned out. Buck had worked hard to get the players he admired into the Hall of Fame—all the time refusing to ever campaign for himself. Now, in that room, he had hoped. And he slowly began to realize that they were going to pass him by again.

At 12:34, Bob walked into the room and closed the door. His eyes were bloodred. He said: “Buck, we didn’t get enough votes.”

Buck O’Neil said: “Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.” The room was quiet for a couple of moments. Bob said he did not have any details yet, but he heard seventeen people had been inducted.

“Seventeen!” I gasped. I didn’t mean to do it. My voice had just escaped, the way a groan escapes when a long fly ball hooks foul at the last moment. Seventeen! There were only eighteen Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame. It did not seem real. They had inducted seventeen people into the Hall of Fame, and Buck O’Neil had not been one of them? That seemed impossible. A cruel joke. Buck looked over at me. His eyes danced.

“Seventeen, huh?” he asked. “That’s wonderful.”

T
HERE WERE, IN
fact, seventeen people voted into the Hall of Fame that day. One of them was the first woman ever inducted, Effa Manley, who had co-owned the Newark Eagles. Sonny Brown had made it, which delighted Buck no end. Biz Mackey had made it. Bob Kendrick walked into the Field of Legends in the heart of the museum to tell the press that Buck had not made the Hall of Fame. Bob began to speak, and then he broke down and started sobbing. Some people ranted in the hallways. This was Buck’s home field, and righteous indignation ignited the air. They wanted to know how this was possible. They would not find out. The committee members would not explain why Buck was not voted into the Hall of Fame. They had decided to keep their votes secret.

Back in that little room with the white phone, Buck looked at the list of new Hall of Famers for a long time. He did not say much, but he nodded sometimes and his eyes flickered recognition as they scanned the names. He did not look any older or younger than he had a few minutes before, when he was talking about bobsledders and how much he loved baseball. He did not look any happier or sadder. I asked him how he was feeling. He said:

 

I’m all right.

Disappointed, maybe.

I thought I would…

Happens in life.

You keep on going.

Happens in life.

 

He went back to looking at the names. Every so often he would call out a name and say, “I’m glad he got in. He was a great player. I’m so glad.”

B
EFORE HE WENT
to speak to the gathered media, Buck turned to me and said: “I wonder who they will ask to speak at the Hall of Fame induction.”

It was a good question. The seventeen people selected were dead. Most of them had been gone for fifty years. It seemed unlikely that the Hall of Fame would find family members for all of them, and they certainly would not let each family member give a speech—that would be like “Open Mike Night” and the ceremony would last three days. There was word that Jackie Robinson’s daughter Sharon would speak, a nice touch, but she was not old enough to know most of these players and executives. Double Duty was gone. Maybe Monte Irvin would speak?