Finally recognized: beloved Negro Leaguer rewrites history.A ONE-TIME BATTING CHAMPION OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES Negro leagues Associations of teams of black baseball players active largely between 1920 and the late 1940s. The principal leagues were the Negro National League, originally organized by Rube Foster in 1920, and the Negro American League, organized in 1937. managed one more home run before his passing in October. Buck O'Neil John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil (November 13, 1911 – October 6, 2006) was an American first baseman and manager in Negro league baseball, most notably in the Negro American League with the Kansas City Monarchs. , who died from complications of congestive heart failure congestive heart failure, inability of the heart to expel sufficient blood to keep pace with the metabolic demands of the body. In the healthy individual the heart can tolerate large increases of workload for a considerable length of time. , was able to get 17 legends from the Negro Baseball League and preNegro League days voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 30th. It's the largest number of inductees in one year in the history of the Hall of Fame. O'Neil was 94. "This year's decision was all about numbers. A group of baseball researchers and historians compiled the statistics from the Negro League. The results showed that many of these players had statistics on par with other Hall of Fame players," says Dale Petroskey Dale Petroskey is the President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He became Hall President in 1999. He graduated from Michigan State University in 1978, and worked in the White House from 1985-1987 under then-United States President Ronald Reagan. , president of the Baseball Hall of Fame. O'Neil spearheaded the recognition of the Negro Leagues and was himself just one vote short of the Hall of Fame. |
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