Buck O’Neil’s Legacy Leaves a Stamp as we Celebrate BHM

“There was simply no one like Buck O’Neil. He touched all of our lives in ways I can’t express. He was a great American hero whose compassion, humanity, and determination made the game of baseball – and the country – a better place for all of us.” – Lynn Novick, Producer, Ken Burns Baseball

On November 13, 1911, in Carrabelle, Florida, a man by the name of John Jordan ‘Buck’ O’Neil was born. He was the grandson of a slave. He was initially denied the chance of earning a high school diploma because of racial segregation but got a second chance to complete high school and two years of college after moving with several family relatives to Jacksonville, Florida.

Times weren’t easy on the young O’Neil growing up in the 1920s. “When I finished elementary school in 1926,” he recalled, “my grandmother sat me down and said, ‘John, you can’t go to Sarasota High School. It is not for black kids.’ I shed a few tears at the time, but she said, ‘Don’t cry. One day all kids will go to Sarasota High School.’”

Upon finishing high school, he eventually received a scholarship to Edward Waters College, a black school in Jacksonville.

After leaving Florida in 1934 to barnstorm several semi-professional baseball teams, his effort of playing in exhibition games paid off in 1937, when he signed a deal to play with the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. The next year his contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs, and he went on to become one of baseball and Kansas City’s greatest representatives.

Despite the way he was treated given the color of his skin, O’Neil loved both the National Pastime and his country. His playing career was interrupted for two seasons when he went away to serve in the naval academy during World War II. He returned to the Monarchs in 1946 and played four more seasons before calling it quits.

Despite the way he was treated given the color of his skin, O’Neil loved both the National Pastime and his country. His playing career was interrupted for two seasons when he went away to serve in the naval academy during World War II. He returned to the Monarchs in 1946 and played four more seasons before calling it quits.

O’Neil played first base with the Monarchs beginning in 1938 and playing alongside Satchel Paige helped lead the Monarchs to the Negro League championship in 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1942, as well as another Negro League World Series appearance in 1946.

“We were such a good team,” O’Neil boasted, “That in 1942 I believe we could’ve given the New York Yankees a run for their money.”

On Easter Sunday 1943, O’Neil hit for the cycle, and what was even more memorable about that day was that he met schoolteacher Ora Lee Owens, who would eventually become his wife.

O’Neil completed his career as a first baseman in 1949, but his baseball days were far from over.

Through the early 1950s, he discovered and mentored some of the greatest black ballplayers of that generation. Several of the players included Elston Howard, who was born in St. Louis, was the first black player to play for the Yankees and was a part of six World Series winning teams.

Cool Papa Bell, who played for the Monarchs from 1932-1934, told O’Neil that he had to go to San Antonio, Texas to check out a 17-year-old shortstop, and Bell’s word was good enough for O’Neil that he signed the young man without ever even seeing him play.

His name was Ernie Banks, and he played 18 full seasons with the Chicago Cubs, hit over 500 home runs (more than any other shortstop in the game), and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977.

“I patterned my life after Buck O’Neil,” Ernie Banks said at O’Neil’s funeral. “He was a marvelous man. Buck had so much love for everybody, in my life I became the same way. Hey, let’s play two. Buck was a role model for my life. He was the greatest ambassador in the history of the game.” 

Another Hall of Fame player that O’Neil was credited for signing to his first major league contract was a man who would become the all-time stolen base leader for 14 years, and a member of the 3,000-hit club named Lou Brock.

The name of Lou Brock is a glance into the future.

Still many years after his baseball career was over, O’Neil’s impact on the game was greatly felt. A seat in Kauffman Stadium was named the Buck O’Neil Legacy seat to honor one of the greatest faces in Negro League history, he received an induction ring into the baseball scouts Hall of Fame in St. Louis in 2002, and in 1990 he led the effort to establish the Negro League Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Kansas City.

O’Neil was part of Kansas City’s baseball scene for more than 50 years, going back to 1936 in his visit to the city as a member of the visiting Shreveport Acme Giants. He was named player/manager of the Kansas City Monarchs in 1948, 10 years after joining the team and continued through 1955. Lastly, he became a permanent resident of Kansas City in 1946.

“Sometimes, I think God may have kept me on this earth for a long time so that I could bear witness to the Negro Leagues,” Buck said in 2006 when witnessing 17 Negro Leaguers being inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame.

When asked about missing the opportunity to play in the major leagues because he was born too early, O’Neil replied “I wouldn’t trade my life for anybody’s. I’ve had so many blessings in my life, and you shouldn’t feel sad for a man for living his dream. You know what I always say? I was right on time.”