Buck O’Neil, a star first baseman and manager in the Negro leagues and a pioneering scout and coach in the major leagues who devoted the final decade of his life to chronicling the lost world of black baseball, died last night in Kansas City, Mo. He was 94.

O’Neil was a smooth fielder and a two-time league-leading hitter with the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the Negro leagues’ most acclaimed teams, and he also managed them. He spent more than three decades working in the Chicago Cubs’ system, becoming one of organized baseball’s first black scouts and then the first black coach in the majors. In all, his baseball career spanned seven decades.

O’Neil had been chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., since its founding in 1997 and made scores of appearances to raise funds for it. He bore witness to the exploits of figures like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston and Ray Dandridge. All of those players were inducted into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown belatedly, their prime seasons in the Negro leagues coming in the years before Jackie Robinson broke the modern major league color barrier.

O’Neil was among 39 candidates for entry into the Hall of Fame at a special vote in February 2006 to consider figures from black baseball who were not among the 18 previously inducted. Seventeen people were elected in that vote by a 12-person committee, but O’Neil and Minnie Minoso, the only two living figures given consideration, were not chosen.

The former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who was chairman of the committee but did not vote, expressed surprise that O’Neil was not chosen. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum reported receiving expressions of dismay from the Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and Lou Brock over the exclusion.

John Jordan O’Neil Jr. was born on Nov. 13, 1911, in Carrabelle, Fla. When he was a youngster, his family moved to Sarasota, and by age 12 he was playing semipro baseball. When he was barred from Sarasota High School because of his race, he enrolled at Edward Waters College in Jacksonville and earned his high school diploma there, then completed two years of college.

O’Neil left school to play pro baseball, gaining his nickname when he was confused with an executive from another club named Buck O’Neal. He endured the indignity of playing in a grass skirt with war paint for a barnstorming team called the Zulu Cannibal Giants, but in 1938 he made his debut with the Monarchs of the Negro American League.

O’Neil led the league in batting twice, hitting .345 in 1940 and .350 in 1946, when he returned from Navy service, and he played in three East-West All-Star Games. He managed the Monarchs from 1948 to 1955, when they remained one of the Negro leagues’ top teams, and played for them through the 1954 season.

O’Neil was hired by the Cubs as a part-time scout in 1953 and steered Ernie Banks, then the Monarchs’ shortstop, to the Cubs. Hired as a full-time Cubs scout in 1955, he discovered not only Brock but also Lee Smith and Joe Carter. In May 1962, O’Neil became the first black man officially designated as a major league coach, but the Cubs used him purely in an instructional role.

In 1995, the Baltimore Orioles renamed a training facility in Sarasota the Buck O’Neil Baseball Complex, and Sarasota High School presented O’Neil with a degree at a ceremony seeking to atone for his being barred so long ago.

In July 2006, O’Neil came to the plate twice at the All-Star Game of the independent Northern League and walked each time, part of a promotional campaign to have baseball officials place him in the Hall of Fame.

For O’Neil, baseball represented a lifelong joy. “Nowadays, whenever us Negro leaguers put on the old uniforms for autograph-signings and such, you can just see the years peel away,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I’ve seen men lose 50 years in just a few hours. Baseball is better than sex. It is better than music, although I do believe jazz comes in a close second. It does fill you up. - New York Times

Baseball lost a great deal with his passing.
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10-07-06, 03:04 AM
Dwight
I'm sure that today baseball fans all over the world will pause for moment to mark Buck O'Neil's passing. He was an amazing person and an amazing ball player. I loved seeing him on the PBS series "Baseball".

Dwight

10-07-06, 04:22 AM
BobLaz
This was a man like very few others..Having written about him at length in the past, I can tell you that there was no better ambassador for the game of baseball--and he was one of the most pleasant individuals the sport has ever seen. Buck O'Neil was all about positivity and never felt sorry for himself--though he experienced racism like few others ever have--or WILL. We can ALL learn a lot about life from Mr. O'Neil; may he rest in peace.

10-07-06, 11:48 AM
DorianGreyed
My older sister interviewed O'Neil in the 1970s for an article in Sports Illustrated. (Yes, Sister Greyed was a baseball writer for SI in the 70s.) She said that he, along with Monte Irvin (who gave her his World Series ring, amazingly), were two of the nicest men she met in baseball.* O'Neil would have been in his mid 60s, then, and, according to my sister, was a very good looking and engaging man.


*She said that Pete Rose was eactly the opposite, going out of his way to resemble the posterior of a equine. (It is my opinion that he didn't have to go too far.) This was in the days of the first female writers being allowed in the clubhouse. She tells of Rose coming out of the shower and walking toward her with his towel on his shoulder. If nothing else, Sister Greyed was most definitely a Greyed. As Rose approached, with several of his teammates looking on, waiting for the reaction from the woman, Sister Greyed asked her first question. It was something on the order of, "I see your swinging a lighter bat now, Pete. Why is that?" He was not amused.

10-07-06, 07:57 PM
Yankees15
I met Mr. O'Neil a couple of years ago at a speaking engagement at RIT in Rochester, NY. He was such a nice, easy-going man. No better ambassador for the game has ever existed, and baseball desperately needs more men like him. It is too bad he was not elected to the HOF, and probably never will be.
RIP, Mr. O'Neil. I, among many thousands, appreciate what you did for the game, even though the game owed you much more than you owed it.

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