October 9, 2006
A star player in baseball's Negro league, O'Neil broke the color barriers as a major-league coach
Bruce S. Gordon, President & CEO, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said, "John "Buck" O'Neil's death marked the passing of an era. He overcame the policies of discrimination in professional baseball to distinguish himself as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport."
O'Neil, 94, died October 6 at a Kansas City, Mo. Hospital. He was a first baseman and later manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, from 1938 to 1955, one of the greatest teams in the Negro leagues' history. He later became a scout for the Chicago Cubs, where he signed several big-league players, including Hall of Famer Lou Brock, to professional contracts.
Gordon said, "Buck O'Neil represented more than baseball. He was a symbol of the many nameless and faceless African American men and women who survived and prospered with dignity in the face of racism in America. Those responsible for naming players and executives to the National Baseball Hall of Fame should be ashamed that O'Neil was not admitted before his death."
Hall of Famer Ernie Banks told the Chicago Tribune that O'Neil not being accorded baseball's highest honor "was a real travesty and an embarrassment to the game."
O'Neil was a member of the veterans committee of the Hall of Fame and worked to have other overlooked Negro league players named to the hall. In 1994, O'Neil entered the national spotlight when he gave voice to the glory and sorrows of black baseball when he served as a commentator for Ken Burns's Public Broadcasting documentary "Baseball." Burns told the Washington Post that O'Neil "seemed to encapsulate the humanity and love that were behind the Negro leagues."
O'Neil refused to let the rejection by the Hall of Fame dampen his spirit. He led an effort to organize the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which opened in 1990 in Kansas City. He was chairman of the museum until his death.
The grandson of a slave, Buck O'Neil was born John Jordan O'Neil Jr. in Carrabelle, Fla. He escaped the life of a farm worker by winning a baseball scholarship to Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Fla. and later began playing for traveling black teams.
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitor equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
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