Conrads David - I was right on time: my journey from the Negro leagues to the Majors

My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors

Buck ONeil

with Steve Wulf
and David Conrads

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Copyright 1996 by Buck ONeil and Steve Wulf

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ONeil, Buck, date

I was right on time / Buck ONeil with Steve Wulf and David Conrads.

p. cm.

Includes index.

1. ONeil, Buck, 1911 2. Baseball playersUnited StatesBiography. 3. Afro-American baseball playersBiography. 4. Negro leaguesHistory. 5. 796.357/092 B. I. Wulf, Steve. II. Conrads, David. III. Title.

GV865.048A3 1996 96-6370 CIP

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-80305-4

ISBN-10: 0-684-80305-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-83247-0 (Pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-684-83247-X (Pbk)
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-12746-9

All photographs appear courtesy of Buck ONeil, except where otherwise indicated.

With deepest appreciation I acknowledge the encouragement and assistance of those persons who made valuable contributions in the making of this book. Id like to thank the members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) for all their help; Ken Burns for including me in his celebrated Baseball documentary; and writer Mark Ribowsky for his editorial assistance. Most importantly, I extend a special thank-you to all the men of the Negro leagues who fill my life with competitive spirits. They live in my memory as much as in this book.

And finally, I want to thank my friends and colleagues who encouraged me to write about my baseball travels. Their persistence was motivation for me to remember events that my memory had denied me. It was truly a glorious time, and I am so glad to have been a part of it.

John Buck ONeil

To my beloved wife of fifty years, Ora Lee Owen-ONeil, for her enduring patience during my playing days. She stood by me and ran our household while I was traveling with the Monarchs and later scouting for the Cubs. Her sacrifices allowed me to play with some of the best players in the world. I will always be thankful for the presence of this cheerful and easy-to-love lady.

We live in an age of celebrities, not heroes. Even the word hero seems to be something out of the past, out of a time when great men were still possible, an age of unambiguous deeds and values worthy of sacrifice. In studying the history of baseball, our national game that mirrors so much of our history and so many of its faults and virtues, I learned a great deal about the sports hidden history, the darker side that is in so many ways more revealing than the sanitized version we are spoon-fed by our media. I am convinced that this hidden history is the key to our salvation; by lifting up the rug of our past, we find not only the sins we hoped we had concealed beneath it, but also new and powerful heroes who thrived in the darkness and can teach us much about how to live in the light.

John Jordan ONeil is a hero, not in the superficial sporting sense of a man who homers in the ninth to win a game, but in the human sense of a man we all should look to and strive to be more like. His life reflects the past and contains many of the bitter experiences that our country reserved to men of his color, but there is no bitterness in him; its not so much that he put that suffering behind him as that he has brought gold and light out of bitterness and despair, loneliness and suffering. He knows that he can go farther with generosity and kindness than with anger and hate. He is wise, funny, self-deprecating, and absolutely sure of what he wants from life. He is my hero, my friend, my mentor; he is, like Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson, what human progress is all about.

From the moment I first saw Buck ONeil, in interviews conducted by my partner Lynn Novick for our Baseball series, I sensed an electricity about him that made him unlike anyone Ive ever met. Since that first glimpse, Buck and I have become not just friends, but as close as friends can beand really more like family than just friends. (I can still see the face of the ticket agent at the Delta Air Lines counter when I asked for a family rate on the BostonNew York shuttle for the four of usBuck, me, my then seven-year-old daughter, Lilly, and my eleven-year-old daughter, Sarahand the sight of Lilly and Buck hugging that convinced the agent that family was the word that best described us.) Ive heard him speak to groups a hundred timeshes heard me as oftenand at the end of every talk he leaves each listener convinced he is the one person Buck got up that morning to speak to, the one person Buck has been waiting to see. Theres nothing you can say about Buck ONeil that one second in his presence wont prove a hundred times over. It is impossible to resist the positive force that lights him from within and then spreads out and lights and warms you, too. No one is immune to him; only the inattentive miss what is special about him.

One time, early in the interviewing process for Baseball, we brought Buck up to lily-white Walpole, New Hampshirelily-white in every sense, from the population to the snow-covered Currier & Ives settingwhere we filmed some more interviews and he got to meet some of our editing staff. We all went out to lunch at a little pizza place; it was the first time the staff, whod seen him on film, had spent any time with him in person. (I always envy people who are meeting Buck for the first time; whether they meet him in a bar or are sitting next to him on a plane, they may not know who this elegant older gentleman is at first, but by the end of their passage theyre converts.) A woman whos been with me from the beginning of my work, Susanna, went up to Buck at the start of the lunch and said to him, very formally, Mr. ONeil, its a pleasure to meet you, shook his hand and went back to where she was sitting. So we all had our pizza, and we talked, and then at the end of the meal Susanna went over to Buck again, stuck out her hand, and said, Mr. ONeil, its truly been a pleasure. Well, Buck didnt move, just looked at her, and there was a mortifying pause as her hand stood there in midair, with Buck making no move to take it in his. And then, slowly, gracefully, he stood up, smiled, and opened his arms to her and said, Give it up. And she just flew into his arms. Give it upthats Bucks way. Give me a hug, yes, but also, dont be so formal, dont hide behind polite conventions, dont be afraid to show someone some love. Show whats in your heart, always; dont keep it inside. Give it up.

July 28, 1995 was Buck ONeil Day in Kansas City; there was a ceremony at Kaufman Stadium, and a lot of the old Monarchs came to attend the game. The next day, my birthday, Buck and I flew together to Chicago before splitting off in different directionsI was going home, and he was going to Cooperstown for the long-awaited induction of his late friend Leon Day into the Baseball Hall of Fame. As we were parting at OHare Airport, he turned to me and said, You know, Ive been talking to people and saying these same things for sixty years now, but now people are