I Was Right On Time - Softcover

Conrads, David

 
9780684832470: I Was Right On Time
Softcover
ISBN 10: 068483247X ISBN 13: 9780684832470
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

From Babe Ruth to Bo Jackson, from Cool Papa Bell to Lou Brock, Buck O'Neil has seen it all. As a first baseman and then manager of the legendary Kansas City Monarchs, O'Neil witnessed the heyday of the Negro leagues and their ultimate demise.
In I Was Right on Time, he charmingly recalls his days as a ballplayer and as an African-American in a racially divided country. Whether he's telling of his barnstorming days with the likes of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson or the day in 1962 when he became the first African-American coach in the major leagues, O'Neil takes us on a trip not only through baseball's past but through America's as well.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Buck O’Neil was a former all-star player, the manager for the Kansas City Monarchs, the chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. O’Neil has the distinction of being the first Black American to hold a coaching position in major league baseball. He died in 2006.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Why, Nancy, There You Are

Call me Buck.

I was born John Jordan O'Neil, Junior, on November 13, 1911, in Carrabelle, Florida, and a few close friends still call me John, including my best friend, Ora Lee Owens, the beautiful woman I married fifty years ago. I have been called Jay, Foots, Country, and Cap, and also Nancy, which is a story I'll get to involving my friend Leroy "Satchel" Paige. I have been called a few names that shouldn't be spoken, and one time I was called something that made me laugh out loud. A few years ago, they were having a big eightieth birthday celebration for me at my African Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri. There was all this babbling about Buck O'Neil did this and Buck O'Neil did that. But just in case any of it went to my head, a young boy I knew came up to me afterwards and introduced his friend to me; he said, "I'd like you to meet Buck O'Neil. He's an old relic from the Negro leagues." I said, "Son, you are so right."

I might have stayed an old relic, too, had it not been for another friend, Mr. Ken Burns. Ken was nice enough to keep his camera on me for a long time when he was making his documentary, Baseball, and thanks to that film, a whole new generation of people call me Buck. It's kind of nice to be discovered when you're eighty-two years old.

The best thing about the film, though, was that it gave me a chance to tell folks about the Negro leagues, about what a glorious enterprise black baseball was, and about what a wonderful thing baseball is. Back in 1981, at a reunion of us Negro league players in Ashland, Kentucky, a young fellow from Sports Illustrated asked me if I had any regrets, coming along as I did before Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues. And this is what I told him then, and what I'm telling you now:

There is nothing greater for a human being than to get his body to react to all the things one does on a ballfield. It's as good as sex; it's as good as music. It fills you up. Waste no tears for me. I didn't come along too early -- I was right on time.

You see, I don't have a bitter story. I truly believe I have been blessed. Growing up as I did in Sarasota, Florida, I saw men like John McGraw and Babe Ruth and Connie Mack during spring training. As a first baseman for the great Kansas City Monarchs, I played with and against men like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell. As the manager of the Monarchs and later as a scout and a coach -- the first African-American coach in the majors -- for the Chicago Cubs, I got to see the young Ernie Banks, the young Lou Brock, the young Bo Jackson.

The first time I saw Ruth, up in St. Petersburg, it wasn't so much the sight of him that got to me as the sound. When Ruth was hitting the ball, it was a distinct sound, like a small stick of dynamite going off. You could tell it was Ruth and not Gehrig and not Lazzeri. The next time I heard that sound was in 1938, my first year with the Monarchs. We were in Griffith Stadium in Washington to play the Homestead Grays, and I heard that sound all the way up in the clubhouse, so I ran down to the dugout in just my pants and my sweatshirt to see who was hitting the ball. And it was Josh Gibson. I thought, my land, that's a powerful man.

I didn't hear it again for almost fifty years. I thought I'd never hear it again. But I was at Royals Stadium, scouting the American League for the Cubs, and I came out of the press room and was going down to field level when I heard that ball sound as if the Babe or Josh were still down there. Pow! Pow! Pow! It was Bo Jackson -- the Royals had just called him up. And I'll tell you this: I'm going to keep going to the ballpark until I hear that sound again.

I have another reason for sticking around: Sometimes I think the Lord has kept me on this earth as long as He has so I can bear witness to the Negro leagues. I'm fortunate enough to be a member of the Veterans Committee for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Monte Irvin and I are the only Negro league players on the committee now that Roy Campanella has passed on, and for years I've been putting forward the names of the players I think belong in the Hall.

Oh, we've been represented very well in Cooperstown ever since 1971, when Satchel Paige became the first black man to be named to the Hall based on his Negro league career alone. Josh Gibson and my name-sake, the great Buck Leonard, who played first base like I did and was our answer to Lou Gehrig, went in the next year, followed by Monte Irvin, Cool Papa Bell, Judy Johnson, and Oscar Charleston.

These men were elected by a special committee set up by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn specifically to nominate Negro league ballplayers. When the committee was done with its work in 1977, it fell to the Veterans Committee to make the nominations, and over the next four years John Henry Lloyd, the great Cuban Martin Dihigo, and Rube Foster, the father of the Negro leagues, got in. But then things slowed down. It took until 1987 before Ray Dandridge made it in, and then nothing happened for eight more years.

The problem was, the Veterans Committee votes on all kinds of managers, umpires, baseball executives, and the ballplayers who were passed over by the baseball writers when they were eligible for admission. The committee could elect only up to two people each year, and, being one of the eighteen people on the committee, I could see how tough it was for any of the Negro league players to get the 75 percent of the vote they needed. Listen, it's hard enough to get fourteen people to agree on anything.

But the Negro league ballplayers were at a greater disadvantage because the other candidates were getting a second crack, while the Negro leaguers had never been voted on at all by the writers, because Negro league players aren't on the original ballot. They don't get all the publicity that other players get for making it or just missing when the writers' votes are announced every year. So I got to thinking, and I talked to the committee and the Hall of Fame people about it, and we were able to change the rules to make it a little easier for the Negro league players.

It sounds strange, but I told them, "You got to start putting us in a separate category the way you did fifty years ago." They call that ironical, but all I know is that it worked out. There are about a dozen men left who deserve their own plaques, but the one guy I was concentrating on was Leon Day, a great little pitcher and a fast little outfielder for the Newark Eagles, among other teams. The reason I wanted Leon in was that he was still alive, living down in Baltimore in ill health.

So, last March, when the Veterans Committee elected Richie Ashburn and William Hulbert, we also elected Leon Day. Leon was in the hospital when he got the word, and a week later he passed away, knowing he was a Hall of Famer. We made it just in time with Leon.

The problem is, the Hall only gave us five years to rectify this unfair situation, which isn't enough time, because we've got more than four players who should be in the Hall of Fame. Just off the top of my head, I can rattle off about a dozen, pitchers like Bullet Joe Rogan and Smokey Joe Williams and Willie Foster and Hilton Smith and Cannonball Redding. Hitters like Turkey Stearnes and Mule Suttles and Louis Santop and Biz Mackey and Willard Brown and Ted Strong, and slick fielders like Willie Wells. There are 82 players from the major leagues during the years the Negro leagues existed who are in the Hall; it stands to reason that more than eleven of us were good enough to be worthy of the honor, too.

Some folks are saying maybe I belong in that Hall, too. But I'm honest with myself about it. If people say it, it's probably because of the Ken...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
068483247X
ISBN 13 
9780684832470
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande

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