Apt tribute for ‘American treasure’ Buck O’Neil from 3 great storytellers of our time

By the eve of Buck O’Neil’s egregiously overdue induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a fresh sensation at last had come over the two men who were in the room with Buck when the miserable news had to be rendered 16 years ago.

The “gut-wrenching” feeling that had left NLBM president Bob Kendrick in agony before and after having to tell Buck “we” didn’t get enough votes, and the cruel twist that evoked so many “angry tears” in Buck’s close friend and former Star columnist Joe Posnanski — feelings neither thought would ever go away — were dissolving.

At least enough that each could savor and embrace the meaning of this for Buck and the museum with which he’ll be forever entwined.

And all the more when he’s enshrined on Sunday in a Hall of Fame where he already looms large.

“He has to be the only Hall of Famer who had a statue before he had a plaque,” Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Costas said, smiling.

So maybe this is the embodiment of another lesson from Buck, channeled through two of the people who knew him best, about learning to reconcile what was lost and cherish what’s been found.

For Kendrick, the transition perhaps became most tangible when he was speaking at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture a few weeks ago.

Shown the vacant spot marked by masking tape on a wall awaiting Buck’s plaque, it all suddenly became so real that he started to tear up.

Much like Buck would have, he came to focus less on what was missing than on what was gained: powerful, albeit belated, recognition of Buck just as the museum seeks to unveil “some grand plans” for the future of No. 22’s museum in 2022.

“I do think the stars have kind of aligned,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick said that just before the NLBM and Royals co-hosted a “Thanks A Million, Buck” brunch Saturday at Brewery Ommegang.

Prefaced by opening remarks from Royals owner John Sherman, who believes the Negro Leagues’ history of race and risk and “struggle and triumph” is a story that must continue to be shared far and wide, the event then became a panel discussion deftly conducted by broadcaster Joel Goldberg.

In apt tribute to the poet laureate of the Negro Leagues, if not baseball itself, the panel was largely focused on three great storytellers of our times: Kendrick, Posnanski and Costas, who was inducted into the broadcasters’ wing of the Hall of Fame.

(Hall of Fame pitcher Lee Smith, a Buck discovery and devotee, took part briefly before having to leave for another commitment. But he was there long enough to lend a changeup about the singular nature of Buck: “I actually think there was more than one Buck O’Neil,” he said, smiling, “Because there was nowhere I ever went in baseball … Buck hadn’t been there a couple of times already.”)

Asked about the timing of this now and pegged to the point that Buck’s biography was called “I Was Right On Time,” Posnanski briefly reflected on that bitter day when Buck fell short by one vote.

He thought about how moments after that snub, Buck wondered aloud whether the Hall of Fame might ask him to speak on behalf of the 17 former Negro Leagues players and executives.

Feeling empty inside, Posnanski said, “I don’t know” … even as he was also thinking “I don’t care.” His jaw dropped as he realized Buck was hopeful about it.

“You would do that?” Posnanski asked, incredulously.

Buck smiled and put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Son, what has my life been about?”

Posnanski, who authored “The Soul of Baseball” about travels with Buck and Kendrick, realized Buck could see something in that moment that others couldn’t see.

Something that took him until about now to see over that injustice.

Maybe things really could look different over time.

“Now, all these years later, I’ve completely changed my mind,” Posnanski said.

Noting that more than a generation has passed since Buck’s ascension to folk hero via Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, he added, “It’s like this moment comes, and he’s being reintroduced to the country. Being reintroduced. So in a lot of ways, we would have wanted it different. But in a lot of ways this is right on time.”

The panel appeared before a small crowd of guests that featured Lynn Novick, co-producer of “Baseball,” and a dozen or so members of O’Neil’s family that included his niece Angela Terry, a longtime collegiate administrator who will present him on Sunday.

It took her two months “to come up with the words,” she said, adding that her theme would be “the essence of the man.”

Asked what his essence was, she smiled and said, “I can’t tell you that until tomorrow.”

During the panel discussion, though, Goldberg prompted the speakers to get at the essence of Buck.

And Costas amplified something he had told me earlier when I asked him about why Buck was so clearly deep in his heart.

“Because (he) was so sincere,” he said. “Some people have a great charismatic personality, and that’s wonderful, and whether that truly exemplifies everything that’s in their heart may or may not be true. In Buck’s case, it was true.”

Speaking before the room, he put it thusly:

“If you walked into this room right now and you knew nothing about baseball and had no idea who he was, you’d be drawn to him: You’d say, ‘Who’s that?’ ” he said. “He had a star quality. And that star quality was a platform for what he had to say, for the history that he had seen, for the life that he had led.

“If you had someone who was every bit as smart, every bit as well-intentioned and had all the same experiences but was not blessed with that performers’ presence and that story-telling ability, (then) he wouldn’t be able to share it as widely as Buck was able to.”

With quite a megaphone extended by Burns and Novick.

Even when you think about the legion of fascinating and impressive people interviewed for “Baseball,” Costas added, “Every one of us would say without question that the most significant and the most luminous person in that documentary was Buck O’Neil …

“Not just as a Kansas City treasure or a Negro Leagues treasure, but as an American treasure.”

Another term occurred to Kendrick, who often stresses that the NLBM is, in fact, a civil rights museum.

“I think the word ‘hero’ comes to mind,” he said, recalling Burns’ foreword in Buck’s biography. “Ken writes in the book about how oftentimes … ‘hero’ is overused … in such a superficial fashion.

“But not Buck O’Neil. Buck O’Neil was a true hero in his life on this earth. And his spirit still represents a level of being a hero for so many … who will be touched by his spirit when they walk through that Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

“I constantly remind people that he was a man who was the grandson of enslaved people, who helped impart change. And then God blessed him to live long enough to enjoy change and to continue the effort to try and create continued change in this society.

“And to me that embodies what a hero was all about.”

The stories have kept Buck alive, and Costas thoughtfully paused to point out how Kendrick “embodies” Buck’s spirit and “you couldn’t have a better person to carry the whole idea forward.”

Enough so that on Saturday at the Hall of Fame, near O’Neil’s statue, a casual baseball fan approached Kendrick believing him to be O’Neil.

The ever-gracious Kendrick explained he was not, in fact, Buck, and then regaled the man. Plenty of others in the crowded halls also wanted to offer congratulations or talk about Buck, whose gospel Kendrick was only too proud to share on this new day.

When I spoke with him days before, Kendrick expected that Buck’s “spirit is going to fill up the valley” at the induction.

Turns out, right on time, he didn’t have to wait that long.

“It is here,” he said, smiling. “You can feel it already.”

And with that arrived a certain joy and relief he had long believed he would never know, with a little help from the hands of time … and the soul of baseball.