Buck’s HOF call inspires NLBM campaign that could be catalyst for Bob Kendrick’s dream

Friday was another beautiful day at, and for, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. So much so that even by his gleaming standards NLBM president Bob Kendrick radiated a certain surplus glow still basking in Buck O’Neil’s long-awaited induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

In the wake of that triumph last week (albeit 16 years since Buck’s death months after he was excruciatingly omitted from election by a special committee on the Negro Leagues), the NLBM launched its “Thanks A Million, Buck” campaign at the epicenter of a celebration brought home to Kansas City from Cooperstown.

Much like Kendrick announced Buck’s new plaque would be transported here on Aug. 12 as part of the Salute to the Negro Leagues weekend with the Royals, who will display the plaque at Kauffman Stadium on Aug. 13 when they take on the Dodgers.

(On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers, the Dodgers will wear uniforms from the 1947 season; the Royals will be clad in 1945 Kansas City Monarchs jerseys to commemorate the pivotal year Robinson played for them on the way to making history.)

The event in Buck’s honor Friday also provided something that was conspicuously missing at his induction in Cooperstown: the voice of Kendrick, who was born for many things, but few more than to have been Buck’s presenter for the Hall of Fame. While Buck’s niece, Angela Terry, provided a sweet family perspective, Kendrick is a dynamic orator who could have lent deeper context to Buck’s enshrinement.

But Kendrick at least would have been heard some if the Hall of Fame hadn’t canceled elements of the program because of the threat of inclement weather. The cuts included a four-plus minute video about Buck narrated by Kendrick.

“The charm. The charisma. The gentle spirit …” it begins. “You can feel his spirit when you come here to the Negro Leagues Baseball museum. There would not be a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum if it were not for the tireless leadership of Buck O’Neil.”

All of which brings us to yet another irresistible and clever fundraising endeavor from the NLBM as it seeks to harness this moment to perpetuate its mission just as Buck would have wanted.

And, as we’ll get back to, in ways Buck may not even have foreseen.

So … thanks a million, Buck, it is.

“Thanks a million for the humility,” Kendrick said. “Thanks a million for the gentleness and the kindness that he displayed just all the time. Thanks a million for the smiles and the laughter and the songs. Thanks a million for teaching us about the heroes of the Negro Leagues. …”

And thanks a million-plus, he hopes, for a concept based on the idea of a million or more people giving one dollar — “at least one dollar,” Kendrick quickly and subtly added — by linking to ThanksAMillionBuck.com.

“We want you all to be at least one in a million,” he said, “celebrating someone who was indeed one in a million.”

The most tangible target of the campaign is to raise at least $1 million for the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center at the site of the Paseo YMCA, where the Negro Leagues were founded in 1920.

Vital as that cause is in itself, though, the makings of something else could be bubbling here, too.

Speaking during the news conference, Kendrick said that target looms as “just one aspect of growth that is on the horizon.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” he added with a smile, “and you know I can’t keep a secret.”

Kendrick has long dreamed of building a new NLBM, it should be noted. But up until now, that’s been tempered by the matter of first things first … like, in fact, the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center that was catastrophically vandalized in 2018.

After the news conference, I pried and asked Kendrick to elaborate on the secret. He put it this way:

“Well, it’s no mystery that we’ve outgrown our current home,” he said. “And it is leading us to now explore possibilities for growth.”

Indeed, its need for more space and modernization is evident, as Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Costas inadvertently reiterated last week in Cooperstown: “Square foot for square foot, (the NLBM) is about as good as it gets.”

He didn’t say it needed more square footage.

But … it does.

The first wave of this campaign, which will ramp up into another tier at the Buck O’Neil Hall of Fame Induction Gala on Nov. 12 timed to the 111th anniversary of Buck’s birth a day later, could be the foundation or catalyst toward that vision.

Over the last few weeks, Kendrick largely has reconciled the mixed feelings he had about Buck not being recognized in 2006 and even come to consider that this time is more right in certain ways.

Like the rest of us, obviously he would have preferred that Buck had lived to see this.

But part of Kendrick’s thought process has been that because it went as it did, we saw the most indelible of majesty from Buck, whose grace after the snub Kendrick considers one of the most selfless (and uplifting) acts in the history of sports.

We then saw him venerated with a life-sized statue in the Hall of Fame, greeting all who visit, and the Hall of Fame appending his name to Major League Baseball’s lifetime achievement award.

Perhaps the greatest reason Kendrick has come to see it this way, though, is because he knows any recognition Buck ever might have hoped for was simply to amplify the cause of the NLBM.

If Buck was an “American treasure,” as Costas put it last week, the living, breathing reflection of that was the museum. Its everyday quest essentially is to do what Buck did in Cooperstown 16 years ago, when he spoke on behalf of the 17 former Negro Leagues players and contributors being honored posthumously.

So that they will all be remembered.

So that the crucial and compelling history, including its place in civil rights annals, won’t be forgotten.

The museum is “a national attraction and a huge asset to everything we bring to our city,” said Kathy Nelson, president of the Kansas City Sports Commission and Visit KC. “Its cultural and historical value really can never be overstated.”

Just like Buck, whose autobiography was called “I Was Right On Time” and whose legacy is the NLBM … two concepts merging in a new way now.

You could call that fateful, as Kendrick thought about it, or call it poetic.

But just as the NLBM needed it most in the aftermath of the pandemic that sabotaged not only a year-long 100th anniversary celebration but a monumental fundraising opportunity, the door to Buck’s election to the Hall unexpectedly reopened.

And with that came a new frontier of opportunity to tell Buck’s story, as Kendrick intends to extend via a number of forums in the weeks to come.

And, with that, perhaps will come a new frontier on the horizon for the museum as we know it.

Stay tuned. And in the meantime …

“When we say every buck counts,” Kendrick said, “we mean it.”

In this case, especially in the name of one Buck in particular.