Rejected by Cooperstown, Icon Looms Large at Museum

On a field re-created inside the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., 10 bronze, life-size statues are in the middle of a game: Satchel Paige is on the mound, pitching to Josh Gibson. Martin Dihigo is at bat. Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston and Leon Day are in the outfield. Buck Leonard, Pop Lloyd, Judy Johnson and Ray Dandridge are the infielders. All are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But there is an 11th statue. It stands alone, wearing a Kansas City Monarchs uniform. It depicts Buck O’Neil, the manager, his left foot leaning on the chicken-wire fence that surrounds the field, his left arm resting on a thigh. Now 94, O’Neil has survived all those who were remade in bronze.

But with his vivid memory and raconteur’s skills, he has become the Negro leagues’ iconic personality — a former player, manager and coach, and then the first African-American coach in the major leagues for the Chicago Cubs, a team that also employed him as a scout.

O’Neil is the only one on the field not in the Hall of Fame, a message that resonates now, but was not intended when the statues were first installed.

His statue shows him where the manager would be, said Bob Kendrick, the museum’s marketing director. But as O’Neil prepares to show up at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., tomorrow for the induction of 17 players and executives from the Negro leagues and before — each of whom was voted in by a special committee that rejected him — John Jordan (Buck) O’Neil of Carrabelle, Fla., seems to be on the outside looking in.