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"Give it up. You got to give it up. You got to give people love. I can honestly say I love everybody and hate no one." ––Buck
O'Neil from his book "I Was Right on Time"
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Negro
Leaguer of the Month Career:
1934-1955 Born:
November 13, 1911 in Clarabelle,Florida In 1934, two first basemen named "Buck" made the big time in black baseball: Buck Leonard and Buck O'Neil. For years Leonard was a fixture with the Homestead Grays and O'Neil with the Kansas City Monarchs. Although
Buck Leonard was the best first baseman of the 1930s and 40s, Buck
O'Neil was a star in his own right. A much bigger man physically than Leonard, O'Neil was not a home run hitter, but a slick-fielding linedrive hitter along the lines of Mark Grace. Like Grace, O'Neil hit the ball hard to the opposite field, and in 1946 O'Neil copped the Negro American League batting title with a .353 mark. In the Negro League World Series that same year O'Neil batted .333 with two big homers in a losing effort against the Newark Eagles, and was robbed of a triple in the last game by Leon Day that could have meant the Championship for Kansas City. O'Neil was born in Florida and grew up watching his father work in the celery farms. O'Neil vowed to make a better life for himself and he attended Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, where he starred on the baseball team. In 1935 O'Neil was the first baseman for the Denver White Elephants, along with fading superstar Oliver Marcelle, and the team entered the first national semipro tournament in Wichita. It was in Wichita that O'Neil caught his first glimpse of top Negro League players when the Bismarck integrated team stormed through the tournament with Satchel Paige, Double Duty, Quincy Trouppe, Hilton Smith and Chet Brewer to win the $10,000 first prize. The White Elephants team made enough money to have a good time in Wichita before going home. In 1936 O'Neil played with the Dunseith, North Dakota Acme Colored Giants, and he batted over .300. The Acme Giants boasted future Negro League stars Johnny Markum and Joe Scott. In 1937, Double Duty Radcliffe, the manager of the Memphis Red Sox, signed Buck to play first base, but when he tried to juggle O'Neil and Goose Tatum at the same position, he ended up trading O'Neil to the Kansas City Monarchs where he would stay for almost 20 years as a player and manager. O'Neil was a great contact hitter and usually batted in the #2 slot because of his ability to hit-and-run, or in an RBI slot in the order. Buck played in 4 East-West games, and played with Satchel Paiges All-Stars several years. Though Negro League statistics for many of O'Neil's seasons are incomplete, in 1952, when O'Neil was 40 years old, he led the league in fielding percentage at .988, and was 12th in batting with a .333 average, 12 doubles, 1 triple, 5 homers and 37 RBIs in 171 at bats. In a full Major League season of 550 at bats, those numbers would be about 183 hits, 39 doubles, 16 homers and 119 RBIs. Besides being an All-Star player, O'Neil may have been the best Negro League manager of the 1940s and 50s. He sent more players to the Majors than any other manager, including Elston Howard, Ernie Banks, Lou Brock and Gene Baker. I recently had the great honor of meeting Buck O'Neil in person at the Negro League museum in Kansas City. He is everything that is said about him and more! He is truly a wonderful ambassador for baseball and the Negro Leagues and because of his playing, managing, coaching in the Majors, working as a scout, and promoting the game, he should get serious consideration for enshrinement into the Hall of Fame. In
this writer's opinion, O'Neil and Double Duty Radcliffe are the two
living players who belong in Cooperstown. |
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