KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown last month, the journeys of each of the seven honorees reverberated in their own unique ways.
Subtly and organically enough, though, through the afternoon a compelling broader dynamic and narrative emerged that will forever bind together the Class of ‘22.
And that through line is embodied and animated by one in particular. The “linchpin,” Hall of Fame executive Jon Shestakofsky said, was Buck O’Neil, whose Hall of Fame plaque he was preparing on Wednesday to handle with care en route to Kansas City for public display on Friday at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
The plaque, and the treasured essence for which it stands, also can be seen Saturday at Kauffman Stadium before the Royals play the Los Angeles Dodgers in their annual Salute to the Negro Leagues game. After being highlighted in a pre-game ceremony, it will be moved to the Royals Hall of Fame so fans can see it up close during the game.
(Also Saturday, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” color barrier with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers, the Dodgers will wear uniforms from the Robinson era; the Royals will be clad in 1945 Kansas City Monarchs jerseys to celebrate the crucial year Robinson played for them on the way to making history.)
If it seems like quite a gesture so soon after Buck was inducted at last and that maybe we could get used to this, it also could be that it’s now or never to see the plaque outside of Cooperstown.
“In the life of a plaque, you probably only take it off the wall once, if ever,” said Shestakofsky, the HOF’s vice president of communications and education. “So this may end up being the only time that the Buck O’Neil plaque ever comes off the wall here in Cooperstown.”
As he considered what makes any HOF plaque such an appealing symbol, Shestakofsky thought about how they punctuate careers while also tending to move us to reflect on our own relationships with the game and the players.
“Any time that you have a chance to revisit your own history and history of the game that relates to you as a fan,” he said, “it brings back incredible memories and it kind of opens people up.”
In this case, there’s more to it than even the deep emotions Buck evokes in so many.
His plaque will speak to his radiant persona and his life’s work, to be sure. But it also will stand for something more: as a focal point in a class that encapsulates the racial evolution of the game over more than 150 years … and shines a light on the way that tracks with our culture.
That’s what has been resounding with Shestakofsky and what struck Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick deeply during the July 24 ceremony: the way this class converges to illustrate the tale of baseball and race in America and thus in itself orbits the NLBM.
Kendrick had been cognizant enough of it, of course, through three members of the class: Buck, the poet laureate of the Negro Leagues, if not baseball itself, among his other distinctions; Minnie Minoso, the Cuban-born former Negro Leagues player who in 1949 with Cleveland became widely known as the “Latino Jackie Robinson;” and Bud Fowler, a pre-Negro Leagues (born in 1858) pioneer of Black baseball.
But the depth and breadth of the entwinement didn’t all really hit Kendrick until Dave Winfield was presenting Fowler, a Cooperstown native who also fleetingly played on some integrated teams in the last 19th Century.
Fowler’s endless barnstorming and roving of the country to play baseball included, via Royals Hall of Fame director Curt Nelson per the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), managing a Black team called … the Kansas City Stars (!).
