Happy Anniversary

I commend to your attention Major League Baseball's celebration today of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro National League, the first league for black players that lasted any significant period of time. This will be a short post, because I regret to admit that I don't know as much about the Negro Leagues as I should. 

Sure, like most baseball fans, I'm aware of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, and Cool Papa Bell, and, of course, Jackie Robinson. But as I'm learning while reading Joe Posnanski's terrific travelogue, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America, there are so many more great ballplayers and even better stories that people should know about.

Written in 2007 about O'Neil and Posnanski's travels across the country to promote the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the book is at once a lesson on how to live (from the cheerful and charismatic O'Neil) and a history of the game he played. We learn about the explosive Oscar Charleston, the eccentric Turkey Stearnes (who talked to his bats - they must've listened, because he hit over .400 three times), the slick-fielding and power hitting Ray Dandridge, and a long list of others. 

I'm not the only one with a somewhat bittersweet view of MLB's celebratory remembrance. Kevin Blackistone wrote a piece in today's Washington Post that takes the league to task for the significant part it played in the Negro Leagues very need to exist. Without MLB's institutional racism, the players mentioned above and the 35 Negro Leaguers who eventually made the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown would've demonstrated their talents at the major league level.

Buck O'Neil had a lot to be bitter about, as did so many of his contemporaries. It's a measure of his character that he chose a different worldview. Here's a passage from The Soul of Baseball that's a decent summation of the man:

"In time, I would grow accustomed to Buck’s boundless joy.  That joy went with him everywhere.  Every  day, Buck hugged strangers, invented nicknames, told jokes, and shared stories.  He sang out loud and danced happily.  He threw baseballs to kids and asked adults to tell him about their parents and he kept signing autographs long after his hand started to shake.  I heard him leave an inspiring and heartfelt two-minute phone message for a person he had never met.  I saw him take a child by the hand during a class, another child grabbed her hand, and another child grabbed his, until a human chain had formed and together they curled and coiled between the desks of the classroom, a Chinese dragon dance, and they all laughed happily.  I saw Buck pose for a thousand photographs with a thousand different people and it never bothered him when the amateur photographer fumbled around, trying all at once to focus an automatic camera, frame the shot like Scorsese, and make the camera’s flash pop at two on a sunny afternoon.  Buck kept his arm wrapped tight around the woman standing next to him. “Take your time,” he always said. “I like this.” Always."