Who is Buck O’Neil? Meet the KC baseball icon being inducted into the Hall of Fame

John Jordan O’Neil, better known as “Buck,” takes his rightful place among baseball’s greatest players in Cooperstown, New York, this weekend as he is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

It’s been a long time coming for O’Neil, the Kansas City Monarchs star player and manager who was passed over for the Hall of Fame shortly before his death in 2006. O’Neil’s second chance came via an Early Baseball Era ballot of 10 individuals. He was one of two on the ballot elected by a 16-member panel.

“It’s hard to get past the agonizing shame that he won’t be there to revel in it as he would have in 2006, when a process in part created for him to be immortalized went awry,” writes The Star’s Vahe Gregorian, who will be covering the Sunday induction ceremony.

“We’ll ache for his tangible presence. We’ll long for the missing sequel to the jubilant speech he gave then, even amid the personal snub, on behalf of the 17 former Negro Leagues players and executives being honored posthumously at the Hall of Fame,” Gregorian writes in his column.

So who was Buck O’Neil? Here are a few things to know about the Kansas City baseball icon:

Baseball was in his blood

Born on Nov. 13, 1911 in Carrabelle, Florida, O’Neil’s baseball career began when he was 12 playing semi-professional ball on the barnstorming circuit. He earned his way into the Negro American League in 1937. A year later, he signed with the Kansas City Monarchs to play first base.

He registered a career batting average of .288 and batted .300 or better in four seasons. He played in three All-Star Games as well as two Negro World Series despite having his career interrupted for two years during World War II, when he joined the U.S. Navy.

He later managed the Monarchs, including a stint as a player/manager, and won two league titles and a shared title as the club’s skipper. He went on to become the first Black coach in Major League Baseball when he signed on to lead the Chicago Cubs. In 1988, O’Neil returned to Kansas City as a scout for the Royals.

On Buck O’Neil’s HOF induction at last: ‘His spirit is going to fill up the valley’

His spirit is alive at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

O’Neil didn’t have kids, but the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in the heart of Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz District is his baby.

The NLBM is the world’s only museum dedicated to preserving the history of African-American baseball and its impact on the American society and culture.

Buck O’Neil helped open the museum in 1991 — it was a tiny, one-room office space then, but O’Neil had ambitions to build a permanent facility to celebrate America’s unsung baseball heroes.

In 1997, under O’Neil’s leadership as the museum’s chairman, the NLBM moved into its 10,000 square-foot site in Kansas City. The museum boasts that it has since welcomed more than 2 million visitors.

In July 2006, the U.S. Congress designated the NLBM “America’s National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum” — putting it in the same honorific category as the National World War I Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

O’Neil’s spirit has been kept alive at the museum through the efforts of Negro Leagues historians such as current Negro Leagues president Bob Kendrick, Phil S. Dixon and Larry Lester, among others. It’s also been championed by the memories of those who saw him play or manage in the Negro Leagues, and those who interacted with him during his days as a scout and local folk hero with the Royals.

Planning a trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum? Here’s what you need to know

He’s no stranger to Hall of Fame visitors

Baseball fans know Buck for many reasons, but visitors to Cooperstown will also become familiar with the life-size bronze statue of the Kansas City legend inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

In 2008, the Hall of Fame created the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is presented not more than once every three years to honor an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to the qualities exhibited by O’Neil.

Buck O’Neil was the first recipient in 2008.

The statue in Cooperstown was dedicated that same year, accompanied by a list of award recipients and a plaque educating visitors about O’Neil’s contributions to baseball.

The Royals honor him every game

If you’ve been to a Royals game, you’ve noticed the team honoring a member of the community who’s sitting in a single red seat amid sea of blue ones. That seat in the lower bowl behind the right field foul pole is the Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat, and it’s been that way since 2007.

Why that spot in the stadium? It was where O’Neil sat every time he was at Kauffman Stadium to scout players.

The Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat is reserved for those who live up to O’Neil’s spirit by making a difference in the Kansas City community.

The Royals invite community members to nominate someone for the honor. Judges select 79 winners throughout each regular season, and honorees receive five tickets to the game, a premium parking pass and a commemorative plaque. Winners are honored throughout the game both in the stadium and on Bally Sports Kansas City’s broadcast of the game.

He left the Monarchs to serve in the Navy during WWII

O’Neil was a Monarch from 1938 until his retirement in 1955, but he left the team for two years to help serve his country during World War II. He joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the Stevedore Battalion.

His job was to load and unload ships in Mariana Islands and then at Subic Bay in the Philippines. He later wrote in his 1996 memoir, titled “I Was Right On Time,” that he saw the same type of segregation in the Navy that he knew from the Jim Crow South.

“Our own government, which was putting our lives on the line for freedom, was the one telling us to sit at the back of the bus,” O’Neil wrote. “If I had captured a Japanese prisoner, I do believe the Navy would have treated him better than it did me.”

In the Navy O’Neil was responsible for a crew of a dozen men. He wrote in his memoir that he was once complimented on his leadership skills: “If you were white, you’d be an officer by now.”

He’d stay connected with the baseball world overseas, as friends sent him news clipping from Black newspapers about how the Monarchs were playing. One of young stars he learned about: Jackie Robinson.

Kansas City has a bridge named after him

The Buck O’Neil Memorial Bridge — formerly the Broadway Bridge — is a triple-arch bridge carrying U.S. 169 over the Missouri River. It is a key connection between downtown Kansas City and the growing communities north of the river.

The bridge opened in 1956. After more than 65 years of service to Kansas City commuters, the Missouri Department of Transportation determined that the bridge is due for a rebuild to support our region’s future growth.

Construction is underway, and will be for quite some time, but it’s quite the way to honor a man who meant so much to this city.

Lynn Worthy contributed to this report.