Buck O'Neill WalksI was, to put it mildly, not a fan of Ken Burns' series on baseball, which was broadcast on PBS about a decade ago. Although the early episodes, which concerned baseball before the turn of the 20th century, were entertaining, once it got into the modern era I could see the glaring flaws.
But Burns did one thing right in that series; he put Buck O'Neill front and center to tell us about the Negro Leagues. A more wonderful spokesman would be hard to imagine--intelligent, warm, funny, gracious... there are no words that overstate the excellence of this man.
Today, Buck O'Neill, aged 94, played in a minor league
all-star game tonight and was intentionally walked (twice--once for each team). Ordinarily I don't like these gimmicky tributes. But this time I'm going to make an exception, because I don't think we can honor Buck too much.
