He never played a inegrated minute in Major League Baseball (he scouted and coached after his long Negro League career ended), yet Buck O'Neil spent the last decade of his life as baseball's greatest ambassador to its past. One of the last connections to the Negro Leagues, and ultimately, the resource that allowed the league's contributions and players to be enshrined at the Baseball Hall of Fame, O'Neil died Friday.
Made famous through his appearance in the Ken Burns documentary - he held the thing together, in many places - he was really the final tie to an era of baseball consigned to the history books.
O'Neil had been an institution at the Negro League museum in Kansas City, MO, up until the end. A baseball fan could not forget his keen mind and memories of Satchel Paige and other Negro League greats. This was the guy who as a scout signed Lou Brock and Ernie Banks, both in the Hall of Fame, for the Chicago Cubs.
This year was seen as the one in which O'Neil would finally get his plaque at Cooperstown, what with a committee handing down recommendations on Negro League officials worthy of enshrinement. Yet he missed the cut by a single vote. That was a true slight on the part of the Hall of Fame. How can the man who ushered so many forgotten stars of baseball's segregated days not get in?
O'Neil was quoted as not being upset about the snub. But everyone else who made a contribution to the game at that level is already in, so there's no logical reason for this man to be stuck outside the gate. I'm sure it will happen posthumously, but the guy lived for 94 years. The Hall's Veterans Committee already had plenty of time to find Buck O'Neil a spot.
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