Post cited in its entirety.
He was an overnight celebrity at the age of 84, turned into one of the faces of baseball by the Ken Burns documentary.
Buck O'Neill -- a living link to the great stars who were prevented from reaching the Major Leagues because of the color barrier that would not fall until 1947. Himself Jackie Robinson's teammate with the legendary Kansas City Monarchs, later their manager. Even now, at the age of 94, one of the great ambassadors of any sport. And yesterday, baseball might as well have told Buck O'Neill to get lost.
Yesterday was the day the game elected to its Hall of Fame, 17 heroes of the era of the "Negro Leagues." The last such election scheduled. Ever. And Buck O'Neill was not elected.
A special committee first selected 94 candidates... Then pared it down to 39 finalists... Then yesterday announced the 17 inductees. O'Neill didn't make the cut. Nor did Minnie Minoso -- himself prevented from playing in the majors until he was 27 years old because of the color of his skin. Minoso went on to record the sixth highest batting average in all of baseball during the prime of his career, 1951 through 1963.
Snubbing Minoso and O'Neill -- apparently for all time -- is extraordinary enough. But only baseball could make it worse. In honoring the Negro Leagues -- it managed to exclude O'Neill and Minoso -- but did elect two white people.
James Leslie Wilkinson was the founder of those Kansas City Monarchs -- Jackie Robinson's team before he broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wilkinson was a white businessman. And today's election also made a Hall of Famer out of Effa Manley... She was the owner of the Newark Eagles of the Negro American League. It sounds almost impossible to believe -- but she too was white -- married to a black man -- and she pretended to be -- as the term was, then, "passed" -- as a light-skinned black.
Most of the 17 electees yesterday were entirely deserving. Such legendary figures as Sol White and Biz Mackey and Jose Mendez will achieve in death and in the Hall of Fame something they were denied in life. Just to twist the knife a little further into Buck O'Neil, the special committee elected Alex Pompez, owner of the New York Cubans team... Also an organized crime figure... Part of the mob of the infamous '30s gangster Dutch Schultz... Indicted in this country and Mexico for racketeering.
He's in the Hall of Fame. For all time. Buck O'Neill is not. It is not merely indefensible. For all the many stupid things the Baseball Hall of Fame has ever done... This is the worst.
I will say that the election of Effa Manley, in and of itself, doesn't hugely bother me. Yes, they elected a white woman over two deserving black men. But it's kind of hard to say that Manley didn't deserve it in some way. After all, the things they cited her for, her accomplishments in baseball, she actually did, at a time when women, no matter what their race, simply did not do such things. At a time when white women simply Did Not Marry Black Men, she did so. And then decided to pass as black, which meant that there were all sorts of things that she could normally have done in life that were suddenly barred to her. And once she became well-known, the option of going somewhere and being herself for a little while was suddenly not an option. So, no, the election of Manley really doesn't seem unjustified, in context.
But still. Given the choices in their entirety, the only rational response you can make to Baseball is: What the HELL were you people thinking?
Posted by iain at February 28, 2006 11:19 AM
