Letters to the Editor
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Sign the Buck O'Neil petition!
I'm a day late replying to King's column from yesterday about the injustice of not inducting Buck O'Neil into the Hall of Fame, because the whole topic made me not quite see straight, and I couldn't find my way to the letters link in that condition. I met Buck O'Neil in 1994 when he gave a tour of the Negro Leagues museum in Kansas City to a group of grassroots community development activists I was traveling with. He gave us so much time and told so many stories that we missed the next phase of our site visits, but it was the highlight of my baseball life, and I've had a pretty wonderful baseball life.
Belatedly: King was exactly right about everything, as usual, even about Effa Manley -- I hated myself for it, but I had the same reaction: As proud as I am to see a woman honored, I can't help but wince at the injustice. If her efforts on behalf of the Negro Leagues are good enough for induction, Buck O'Neil should have been first on the list.
But today he's not quite right about the petition to correct the injustice. Hey, just sign the damn thing. Because there is always an element of politics and popularity about Hall of Fame decisions -- and more important, public pressure plays a role too. As hard as it is for me to give San Francisco Giants owner Peter Magowan credit for anything, he deserves credit for mounting campaigns to get a belated induction for Orlando Cepeda as well as broadcaster Lon Simmons. Leaving out Buck O'Neil is one of those boneheaded decisions that can ultimately be corrected.
I ran into Buck in Scottsdale during spring training last year and he was frail but so wildly happy, being mobbed by fans who almost knocked him off his cane (wait, I think that was me), making time for every last one of them. It would be a tragedy to me -- though not to Buck -- if baseball corrected this injustice when it's too late for his fans to enjoy seeing him on that platform in Cooperstown.