The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck ONeils America by Joe Posnanski

The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck ONeils America Reviews

• 
  Brina

  Today May 6 is Willie Mays’ birthday. It is also the anniversary of the best pitched game in Cubs’ history. As all of us sports fans wait impatiently for live sports to begin again, one of the bright spots has been the writing of Joe Posnanski, columnist for the Kansas City Star and the Athletic. Posnanski has treated sports readers to his top 100 list of favorite players, culminating with Mays in the top spot. With this list receiving glowing reviews, Posnanski decided to treat us to his list of top fifty favorite baseball moments. I look forward to his writing everyday. With the likelihood of baseball being played in 2020 becoming bleaker with each passing day, I have been baseball heavy in my reading choices. And as I have enjoyed Posnanski’s writing, I decided to pick up his book on the Negro Leagues and was treated to a gem of a book.
  
  The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues. Major League Baseball chose to become white only as early as the 1880s, necessitating a Negro Leagues in the first place. Some of the top players in those leagues may well have been as good if not better than stars Babe Ruth and Cy Young. Sadly, because Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Double Duty Radcliffe, et al were never given an opportunity to play in the Major Leagues, people will never know how valid these claims are. Until 1947, the Negro Leagues remained a separate entity, and, according to the few left who played, might have been of higher quality than the Majors. Other than a few exhibitions each year, the Leagues never crossed paths. Babe Ruth advocated for the Negros; most stars did if it meant an extra chance to win a pennant. With white supremacist commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis in charge of the majors until after World War II, integration during the Negro League’s heyday was not even a kernel of an idea. So the Negro Leagues endured for better or worse.
  
  No former player or coach embodied the spirit of the Negro Leagues better than Buck O’Neil, player and later manager of the famed Kansas City Monarchs teams that served as a gateway to the Majors. O’Neil and Posnanski crossed paths on a number of occasions with both hailing from Kansas City. Posnanski had already written other books at the time but was given the idea to write a book about O’Neil, a living history museum of a person. What ensued was Posnanski following O’Neil across the United States for a better part of two years as he engaged Americans on the Negro Leagues and it’s players and history. The result was a treasure trove of stories and advice from a nonagenarian with a sharp memory who saw the country change, in his words for the better, before his very eyes. Buck O’Neil was married to baseball, and his love for the Negro Leagues flows from these pages. O’Neil noted that the two very best things are baseball and jazz, and baseball played by the Negro Leaguers was a sort of jazz of its own, music played on the basepaths. Posnanski was privileged to be in the presence of this living legend and preserve more of his story.
  
  Buck O’Neil had a story for each player and city and spot on his travels. His Nancy story had been told over 10,000 times, and he always stopped for a woman in a red dress. In his heart, he believed that Negro Leaguers belonged in the hall of fame, even if advocating for others came at the expense of himself. O’Neil long stopped going to funerals because he was the longest living teammate and always asked to speak, and at his age this tugged on his heart. What he enjoyed was a day at the ballpark because he never thought the game changed, just the people playing it. As long as he got his ice cream and crackerjack, O’Neil was a happy man. O’Neil was the first black coach in the major leagues and later a scout for the Cubs. He scouted multiple hall of famers and saved many careers. Generations of African American stars owe their career to him, and many revere him even more than Jackie Robinson whose memory fades farther into the past. This is why I read of old time players, O’Neil, the Negro Leagues, and others from generations gone by so that those special memories and stories do not fade away and stay at the forefront of our collective psyches.
  
  Buck O’Neil lived to be nearly ninety five years old. A special party was planned in his honor but sadly he did not make it to see the day. O’Neil and his wife of fifty one years Ora Lee never had children, so O’Neil lovingly referred to Posnanski as his son and permitted him in his hospital room in his last moments. Sadly, O’Neil never saw this book come to fruition, but Posnanski notes that O’Neil would not have been sad. He always said “good black don’t crack” and never regretted a long life lived. O’Neil is one of the speakers on Ken Burns’ baseball documentary, describing both the Negro Leagues and African Americans who helped to integrate the majors. Posnanski has provided baseball fans starving for game action with a more intimate look at one of the game’s treasures. Buck O’Neil embodied the Negro Leagues and was indeed his own Hall of Fame.
  
  4.5 stars
• 
  Sean Gibson

  This is an absolutely phenomenal book--Posnanski is a masterful writer. I reviewed this for Kirkus when it came out:
  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
  
• 
  Bill

  Kansas City sports writer follows Negro Leagues legend, Buck O'Neil, for a year across the country. It's a fabulous, bittersweet biography of sorts of O'Neil and the League itself. The bitterness comes from the reader as you read all the hardships and slights that black players endured to simply play the game. However, O'Neil is nothing but a gut-bucket Zen philosopher throughout the entire journey. So, while parts of it will definitely anger you, O'Neil's spirit is nothing short of awe-inspiring. You really can't help but be touched by the experience of reading this book. I really wish I would've gotten to meet him while he was still alive.
• 
  Grace

  This is a really important book about keeping the memory and history of the Negro Leagues alive, but instead of trying to recap the book or Buck O'Neil's stories, I'll leave you with two quotes in O'Neil's own words:
  
  Before Jackie Robinson, there were men who played baseball. And we were good... People who saw us, man, we could play. We made a difference in this world.
  
  What did I tell you? People say baseball's dead. Baseball doesn't die. People die. Baseball lives on.
• 
  Grace

  To begin with: if you are a fan of baseball, you should read this book.
  
  If you are a fan of Civil Rights, you should probably read this book.
  
  This book made me smile on one page and cry on the next. It made me completely indignant about all of the injustices in the world, all of the unspeakably horrible things that happen in the tiniest actions (or inactions), and yet it left me unable to be truly angry about them - because that is the lesson of Buck O'Neil: How not to be bitter.
  
  This book is incredibly well-written, and I am surprised I haven't heard (more?) about it before now. I have to applaud Joe Posnanski for his handling of the subject matter. I found it remarkable that he managed to introduce himself and his purpose at the beginning of the book, and then completely disappear from the narrative. It is essentially omniscient, unbiased journalism (as if such a thing existed; and anyway of course it is skewed in O'Neil's favor). And then at the end he reappears, as he should, representing the feelings of pretty much everyone with his indignation, and closing the book appropriately.
  
  And then there is the seamless way in which Posnanski occasionally incorporates the lyrics of the great jazz standards into his prose.
  
  Obviously I knew Buck was gonna die at the end of the book. I bawled my eyes out anyway.
  
  I am so glad that the New York Times published an article about the Negro Leagues Museum, and that I read it, and that I then planned a weekend (baseball) trip to Kansas City. Not sure when I would have gotten around to this book, if not for the trip. Not even sure I would have heard of it.
  
  This review isn't doing this book any justice. Just read it already.
  
• 
  Dan

  A fascinating story about Buck O’Neill the baseball player and arguably the game’s greatest ambassador. The book covers Buck’s travels around America in support of the Negro League Hall of Fame and anything baseball related. The events take place when O’Neill was 93 and the book’s narrative ends a year or so later when Buck dies at 94. The Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously created an annual Buck O’Neill ambassador award.
  
  Posnanski is a award winning KC sportswriter. To write this book, with O’Neill’s blessing, he spent more than year traveling with Buck O’Neill to events and speaking engagements.
  
  First off, if you have ever seen Ken Burn’s baseball mini series then you know who Buck O’Neill is. Quite simply one of the sunniest and best story tellers around. A man who was an all star in the Negro Leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs, later a manager, scout, ambassador and was instrumental in establishing the Negro League Hall of Fame in KC. An extraordinary person.
  
  Secondly, this book is poignant and as much a story about a very elderly man reminiscing about life, his deceased wife and of course baseball. Posnanski show us how grueling this frenzied schedule was for O’Neill. At 93 as he spent less than two months out of the year at his home and most of the other ten months on the road in hotels. Although this is what O’Neill wanted and he always attempted to brighten others lives, behind the scenes O’Neill often only attend an inning of a game or less than an hour at an event before having to retire to the hotel due to exhaustion. There simply aren’t many books about very elderly people who still are in control of their lives and making such huge impacts on others lives.
  
  The tearjerker moment of the book came when O’Neill was told he might be inducted into the hall and a decision on the year’s batch of old timer selections was forthcoming at noon the next day. Many hall of famers gathered with Buck to hear the news. The grace with which O’Neill dealt with the disappointment of not being selected was a tribute to his character as he applauded all of his contemporaries that were selected and there were many that year. There was universal outrage in the sports community that Buck was skipped over again. The book more or less ends here aside from an epilogue around his passing and the posthumous award.
  
  I would have rated the book five stars if Posnanski had written a more straight up biography, but he felt that Buck’s autobiography already dealt with the early years.
  
  Still one of the more touching books that I have read for the reasons previously mentioned. I don’t think one has to be a baseball fan to like this book, although it helps to know who many of the old negro league players are.
• 
  Beth Anne

  I've tried so many times to pull together my thoughts on this book. This book is told in a series of stories over the course of a year the author spent with Buck O'Neil. Together they traveled the country as Buck spoke at schools and various events, about baseball, the Negro Leagues, coaching, and ultimately life.
  
  I love baseball in a life-long obsessive, intense joy kind of way. I knew as soon as I started I would enjoy this book, but the final 1/3 or so snowballed into a can't put it down fantastic book that I immediately shoved into my husband's hands (and he's reading it).
  
  I loved the baseball aspects of this book, of course, but it ended up being so much more.
  
  A book about racial injustice through the lens of the great American pastime.
  
  A book about the power of our stories and sharing them with each other.
  
  A book about kindness, forgiveness, and love in action.
  
  A book about life, grief, dreams, and legacy.
  
  And baseball.
  
  Maybe I've sparked your interest. If so, I'd love to hear what you think when you read it. And huge gratitude to Melodee @captivethoughtbooks for recommending this to me many months ago. I'm so glad I bought my own copy.
• 
  Andrew

  Loved it! I'm a fairly casual sports fan, and I asked my brother-in-law for a sports book rec since I know there are plenty of good ones. He said this is his favorite book of all time, and it's easy to see why. Buck's story is complex and inspiring, and his general attitude about life just makes me feel good. Very optimistic, even though he and his fellow black players in the Negro Leagues were openly discriminated against and forced to suffer all kinds of indignity and injustice. Even though the current day players are paid far more, and even after steroid use rocked the sport, Buck kept up with his refrain that baseball hasn't changed, we've changed.
  
  Buck spent a huge part of the latter years of his life tirelessly championing the inimitable talents of the Negro League, and did everything he could to get them into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some of the other Negro League players became bitter after all the hardships they endured, but Buck always felt lucky that he was able to play baseball for a living.
  
  Beautiful story, beautifully told, highly recommend for fans of baseball or fans of fantastic stories.
• 
  Michelle Everly

  One of the best books I've read in a long time! Every chapter made me cry. Buck O'Neil was a gift.
• 
  Sam Bauman

  I bought this book a while ago. I really enjoy Posnanski's blog but I hadn't gotten around to reading the book. Well, I had kept it at work and was working late on an upgrade with some time to kill in the middle and it captured me so I had to read the whole thing pretty quickly.
  The book is really just Joe following Buck O'Neil around for a while before Buck's death. But in the course of this he paints a wonderful picture of Buck O'Neil and what a good attitude he had despite what he went through. I'm sure Joe took some license with Buck as a character but if he was half as wonderful of a human being that he is portrayed as in the book he was still better than most. It was really hard not to get emotional reading about the stories and what Buck had been through even before I got to the ending I knew was coming. Knowing the end didn't make it easier, though.
  I think if you have a heart you will enjoy this book. I'm sure that if you love baseball though, it will triple (Buck's favorite hit) your enjoyment of it. I would recommend it whole heartily to any baseball fan.
• 
  Jimmy Autrey

  I love baseball. I love Buck O'Neil. Sadly, I did not love this baseball book about Buck O'Neil. As much as I was looking forward to getting into some really good baseball stories from a guy who really lived it I was left wanting. The book got such good ratings for its writing, but almost all of the chapters followed the same script! Buck and I go to a game honoring former Negro League ballplayers. Buck smiles as he autographs baseballs. Another Negro League player complains about how he was treated. Buck is positive and says it wasn't so bad. Buck takes pictures with a lady...if she's pretty he holds her a little longer. Buck gets tired. Buck reminisces on the way back to the hotel. Now, I will admit I felt for the old man as he became aware that he would not be elected into the Hall of Fame after doing so much for all the other Negro League players who did, remaining positive the whole time. A real-life travesty! At some point in the future I intend to read Buck's biography. Maybe it'll be about baseball.
• 
  Jesse Dougherty

  As a reporter covering professional baseball, I don't know nearly enough about the legacy and history of the Negro Leagues. This story, told through the eyes of a 94-year-old Buck O'Neil, both reminded me of that and helped begin to fill a significant knowledge gap. After finishing it, I immediately started reaching O'Neil, the Kansas City Monarchs and other texts I could use to deepen my understanding of what Black players of that time experienced. Also, it's hard to go wrong with Joe Posnanski.
• 
  Rohan Ahluwalia

  An incredible read which lives, breathes, and jumps off the page with the kind of electricity Buck O'Neill lived. You can hear O'Neill's deep baritone and hearty laugh throughout, hearing tales from his life in and fighting for the memory of the Negro Leagues. Through these tales, O'Neill (and Posnanski in writing it all), serves a reminder that baseball was, and still is, a microcosm of America - in both its glory and ugliness. Buck O'Neill's attitude to hardship is admirable and inspiring, as is his tireless work to keep the story of the legends he played with alive. More than anything, his insistence in refusing to accept any sort of "second rate" moniker or associated pity for the Negro Leagues, just because they couldn't play in the Major Leagues, is a reminder that they were legends and heroes of their own merit. Their stories, and Buck O'Neill's story, deserves to stand tall on its own merit, with their triumphs, hardships, and failures alike. This truly is a wonderful book that I recommend to all.
• 
  Russel Henderson

  Like most baseball fans I was introduced meaningfully to Buck O'Neil for the first time in Ken Burns's magisterial Baseball documentary. His wit, his optimism, and his love of the game sparkled on film. Posnanski lets the reader spend a few hundred pages with him. Sadly the book is crowned by Buck's disappointment at a HOF snub (it remains a snub, and should be rectified ASAP), but so much of it is the joy, the kindness, and the wisdom that he shares with his traveling companion, his friends, and everyone he meets. A delight to read.
• 
  Ray

  It doesn't get much better than this. Buck O'Neil's life, like so many greats of any field, far surpasses a baseball story. He had so much hope in his life, and was THE ambassador of the Negro Leagues Museum as he told their stories. It's a civil rights story as much as baseball history, and O'Neil is a guy that crosses the aisle and appeals to the goodness in everyone.
  
  I've read Posnanski's articles for years and he's always been at the top of the list for me, but I think this is the first book of his I'd read. Same idea as his articles - he's just a natural writer.
• 
  Valerie

  I had never heard of Buck O'Neil, and most of the other players mentioned in this book, because they played in the Negro League. Their nicknames, their stats, their teammates, are lost to history as old age takes them.
  
  This glimpse into the life, baseball career, and gentle activism of a man pushing for recognition in the face of racism, was a beautiful, bittersweet memoir of an era in baseball that I wish I knew more about.
• 
  Cale Herreman

  The author travels with Buck O'Neil, a still-sharp old man, so of course there is a lot of history in this book, of baseball, of social progress. But what comes through most in this book is the soul of a man who has no stock in hate, or bitterness. He remembers the injustices visited upon him and his fellow African-American players, but is glad to have lived to see the times change. Buck strikes up conversations with everyone he meets, but what he often wants to know is how people got to know baseball, seeing it as something passed down from parents to children, something bigger than the game, with its scandals and its flawed players.
• 
  Andy Vaught

  “Think about this, son. What is my life about?”
  “The greatest thing in all my life is loving you.”
  
  The childhood baseball player in me couldn’t get enough. The connection to history was poignant and constant. And the adult in me who still loves the game wishes for glimpses like this into icons like Buck’s life. What a gift it must have been for Posnanski to have traveled and chronicled these stories and what gift it is to us that they’ve been curated and shared in such a compelling way.
• 
  David Blankenship

  This is a beautiful book, more about the life of a generous and joyous man than it is about baseball. We might look at Buck O'Neil's life with regret and sadness for the things he was not able to do, but O'Neil would have none of that. He showed how to live graciously and gratefully in all things.
• 
  Henry Levkoff

  Just a beautiful book about a beautiful human being. If you love baseball, read this book. If you love people, read this book. If you don’t love either baseball or people, read this book anyway and you just might start.
• 
  Mark Long

  Good book about Buck O'Neil and his unique love for others.
• 
  Shari

  Posnanski writes a good one here: a love letter to Buck O’Neil and baseball and life. Oh, there’s crying in baseball... but it’s the good kind.
• 
  Todd Stockslager

  Review title: Yes, I cried
  
  Buck O'Neil was the real narrator of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary series, his story winding through and around the history of the game he wasn't allowed to play on its biggest stage. It was the first introduction for most Americans to this Negro League legend, who because of his soft spoken positive demeanor and Sarasota, Florida upbringing reminded so much of my grandfather who lived 50 years of his life in the same Gulf Coast town and spoke with the same accent and cadence. It was those defining characteristics, not the superficial difference of skin color, that made me smile with joy whenever he was on the screen.
  
  Posnanski followed O'Neil, 94 at the time, for a year as he traveled around the country promoting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (in Kansas City) and talking about the real stories and lives of Negro League players, and he captures that voice and cadence on paper by writing some of his conversation formatted as song lyrics. Talking to a young white fan walking through a traveling exhibit from the museum, O'Neil described racism this way:
  
  Funny,
  You look back,
  Didn't make no sense.
  Racism.
  No sense
  What people do to each other
  'Cause of something dark
  In their hearts.
  
  (p. 158)
  
  Racism as a darkness of the heart not of the skin had a powerful impact on me because of the separation of the words on those last two lines. Racism is something dark, not on the skin, but in the heart.
  
  Like my grandfather, of the same voice and temperament despite the difference in skin color, Buck O'Neil was also unable to say bad things about another person. After football coach Mike Ditka, a huge celebrity in Chicago, gave a hurried speech in nearby Gary, Indiana because he had a tee time to make, Buck said "There's a lot of wisdom in what Mike Ditka said. You just had to listen real quick." (p. 169). Time after time, Posnanski describes O'Neil putting a positive spin on seemingly negative situations.
  
  He also documents long and exhausting days when in the heat of summer and after numerous interviews and autographs O'Neil would be fading fast and showing his age, only to be revived by an encounter with a young fan. A positive moment, a hug from a fan, a stirred memory would have magical powers to restore a youthful energy in a body long old.
  
  But in the end, Posnanski and Buck O'Neil left me in tears I wasn't expecting and couldn't stop. Baseball's hallowed Hall of Fame, to try to provide some corrections to decades of injustice, put together a special committee to select worthy Negro League players, owners and others for whom O'Neil had spent his last years campaigning. While never touting his own modest credentials as a player, more creditable status as the first black coach in the Majors and a scout who found some of the best of the next generation, and his most important merit as founder and promoter of the Negro League Baseball Museum, O'Neil hoped for selection along with his peers. Waiting expectantly with friends and visitors at the Museum, in between media calls asking for comments on the selection that was widely expected, he regaled those present with stories and questions to others about their best memories of baseball, waiting for the call from the Hall that never came.
  
  Posnanski, now so familiar with O'Neil, not just as a writer but as a friend and "son" (as he identified Posnanski to someone who asked who the "white boy" was who always followed him), could see the hurt and pain in the slight in small seconds-long signals that others would not have noticed. But Buck remained positive and upbeat and rejoiced for the 17 selected, and even agreed to speak at the induction ceremony. Through it all he never lost his dignity and pride. Months later, he died of cancer. Remembering my grandfather's quiet dignity and last days and that voice that so reminded me of Buck O'Neil, I wept tears of sorrow--and joy. O'Neil was indeed baseball's soul.