Buck O'Neil

Absolutely.

Probably one of my favorite stories about Satchel Paige was one often told by Buck O'Neill.

So Buck O'Neill was Paige's teammate and later manager, you know, player manager on the Monarchs.

O'Neill was, you know, an incredibly popular interview subject for the rest of his life.

He outlived Page by 25 years, and during much of that time, he was telling stories about Page, a person that he loved.

And I think he said a lot of things that contradicted other things he said.

So a lot of it, there's an art to sort of trying to figure out what he was thinking a lot of times, because I'm sure he had good days and bad days.

He had days where he seemed cynical and there were days that he seemed like Buck O'Neill, like I'm just happy to play baseball.

Um, Allan is reading a passage from the introductory pages, uh, to this book in which Winfield is, uh, looking back at the source elements, the trace elements of his longstanding and well-publicized feud with Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, which began to bubble forth almost immediately after Winfield signed his historic 10-year, $23 million contract in 1980, making him the highest player in all of professional sports history.

Um, and in this passage, we'll hear a little bit about Winfield's experience on the receiving end of some venom and vitriol and, um, and tensions, uh, as he experienced his first steps in a Major League Baseball uniform, uh, ending up with a lovely exchange, uh, that he had in Kansas City with former Negro Leagues great Buck O'Neil.

So here we are with Allan Mayman reading a passage from Touching All the Bases, co-written with Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

Touching All the Bases: A Story of Power, Purpose, and Surviving the Bronx by Dave Winfield with Allan Mayman.

But as much as I wanted to break new ground, I wasn't willing to sell my soul or dignity to do it.

This book is also about forgiveness, healing, and coming to terms with the past.

I learned a lot about those things from Negro Leagues legend Buck O'Neil.

I remember the day the Yankees were in Kansas City playing the Royals when I noticed an older man watching me take cuts during batting practice.

But I'm just saying, if you kind of step back, look at it, and think about it for a second, Josh Gibson's numbers, I mean, should be talked about and, you know, and, like, not poo-pooed on, okay? He was an incredible baseball player.

Um, I've heard interviews of, like, uh, Buck O'Neil talking about him, uh, Cool Papa Bell, um, I think I saw one of Satchel Paige.

Like, he was a badass.

But think about it this way, think about, like, all the baseball you've probably watched in your entire life.

But one thing is for sure, I think it's good for men not to stay in one camp all the time and be blind to either the, some of the things and trials and tribulations that many do go through, and that they may end up going through themselves, or also to think that the day isn't gonna get better.

I wanna go ahead and tell Buck O'Neil's story, and it's going to kinda show us that there is a whole story to what we're experiencing.

So let me give you a little bit of background who Buck O'Neil was.

Buck was born in 1911 in Florida.

Up next, a story from Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

Today, Bob shares with us a story about one of his friends, Buck O'Neil.

Take it away, Bob.

[upbeat music]

Our guests walk into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and you literally walk through the turnstiles into an old ballpark and the first thing that you see is the field, the Field of Legends and the Field of Legends is a mock baseball diamond that houses 10 of 12 life-size bronze sculptures of Negro League greats and they are cast in position as if they were playing a game.

[gentle music] Now, on the outside looking in is my dear friend, the late great Buck O'Neil, who was the only one of our collection of statues that wasn't in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Well, thankfully, on December 5th of 2021, Buck O'Neil received enough votes to now be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, 15 years after he missed by one vote.

[upbeat music] I'll never forget that day as long as my mother would say I'm in my natural mind.

Some guys are just-

But in the playoffs you can, and there, there have been, in the playoffs, a number, somebody can make the list, of players that weren't that good, but had an incredible hot streak in a playoff run, probably Buck O'Neil.

Hoping that's Jelic this year-

Well, I, well-