To the end, a sweet soul, never bitter

The last day of January, and there was snow in the bleachers, icicles hanging on the foul poles, and 350 kids were sitting behind glass in Fenway Park. Most of them had never laid eyes on a soul as old as this white-haired man, who with a hand as big as a frying pan stroked his ebony cheek and spoke to them in a voice that somehow was strong and soft at the same time.

``They wouldn't let me play baseball," Buck O'Neil said, ``because of this beautiful tan, uuuuhhhh-huuuhhhh, yes."

Buck O'Neil died Friday night in Kansas City. He was 94 years old, closing in on 95.

``So sad, so very sad," said Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino. ``What a life. I mean, he was just a giant, yet he remained so plain and humble and ordinary in some ways, too.

``It's the passing of an era. They don't make 'em like Buck O'Neil anymore. I never met a man with less bitterness in him, despite the myriad indignities he experienced in the course of his life."

When the Red Sox invited O'Neil to Fenway Park that winter's day in 2004, as part of their celebration of Jackie Robinson's birthday, they did so for a reason.

``Buck was living history," said Dr. Charles Steinberg, the Sox' executive vice president of public affairs. ``Our dream is that those children one day will tell their grandchildren 60 years from now, `I met Buck O'Neil.' Who better than Buck O'Neil to tell these kids why Jackie Robinson was the right one -- not the best one, but the right one -- to break the color barrier?"

John Jordan ``Buck" O'Neil was the grandson of slaves. ``Do you know why his name was O'Neil?" Steinberg said. ``That was the name of the slave owner who owned his grandparents. They took his name because he never separated families, parents from their children. They took his name as a sign of gratitude and respect."

Buck O'Neil could tell stories, hmmm, hmmm, yes. Cool Papa Bell, he was so fast he won his bet with Satchel Paige that he could flick the light switch in their hotel room and jump in bed before it got dark, but ol' Buck could tell you it was because Cool Papa knew the switch was faulty. Or how about that day in his hometown of Sarasota, Fla., when he looked up in awe after Babe Ruth's bat struck a ball and made a sound he heard duplicated just twice more in his lifetime, once by Josh Gibson, the great Negro leagues catcher, the other by Bo Jackson.

But first, he would seek out a pretty woman in the room, as he did at a dinner the Sox held for him the night before he spoke to the kids, melt her with a smile, then open his arms and wrap her in a hug. Best day of his life, he often would say, is when he hit for the cycle and that night met Ora, the woman who would become his wife for 51 years.

Ken Burns, the documentary maker, introduced a nation to O'Neil in 1994 in ``Baseball," the series in which O'Neil brought long-forgotten heroes of the Negro leagues to life.

``How lucky we are to have had some time with him," said Lucchino, who was CEO in Baltimore for the All-Star Game in 1993 when a young PR intern from Yale named Theo Epstein conceived and executed a project to make the Negro leaguers part of the festivities, an effort that paid off when a Baltimore native son named Leon Day subsequently was elected to the Hall of Fame.

When Lucchino was in San Diego, O'Neil came there, too, as part of the push to build the Padres a new ballpark, and one day spoke from the roof of a parking lot in the depressed part of town proposed as site of the new park. Steinberg recalled his words: ``He said, `When I was a young man playing baseball, we came all the way to San Diego and this neighborhood was really hopping. To come back years later and see what happened to this neighborhood, I wanted to cry. If you build a ballpark and bring the life and vitality back here, ol' Buck would like to come back once more.' "

O'Neil, who played and managed in the Negro leagues, became the first African-American coach in the major leagues, and as a scout found Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Lou Brock. His answer, to those who asked whether he regretted that his youth was spent in the era of Jim Crow, could be found in the title of his autobiography: ``I Was Right On Time."

``He used to say, `Don't shed a tear for ol' Buck, I was dancing with Lena Horne,' " Steinberg recalled. ``He said, `I don't think we missed anything. Maybe the whites missed something not seeing us.' "

That winter's morning in Fenway Park, Buck O'Neil told those kids what he thought of hatred. ``I don't hate God's creatures," he said. ``I can't hate any of God's children. Hate? I hate cancer. I hate disease."

There was a special election this year of Negro leaguers to baseball's Hall of Fame. Somehow, O'Neil, the game's greatest ambassador, fell a vote or two short. But who was it who gave the speech honoring the 17 who were chosen for induction? Buck O'Neil.

``Buck was such a pure soul and had such a genuine love of life, baseball, and other people," Epstein said yesterday. ``It's remarkable that being bitter about segregation never occurred to him. He saw the Negro leagues as a triumph, so there was nothing to be bitter about. He was just an inspiration of a human being."

Uuuuhhhh-huuuhhhh, yes. Let's hope those kids remember, and pass it on.