The Negro Leagues, Buck O'Neil and Overcoming Evil With Good

For years I have been drawn to the stories of Negro League Baseball  —the 'colorful' characters, the level of excellence, the endless slogans and nicknames. The context of all this, of course, was racially divided America of the early 20th century. If you take the time to read about this era you will read with tears the stories of profound injustice toward the black players (i.e., no food, nor lodging in certain cities) and will celebrate the eventual integration of baseball embodied by Jackie Robinson. It all seems like a parable — imperfect of course— of the highs and lows of race relations in America at the time.

While on sabbatical, I visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO. The Museum, as I understand it, owes it's existence to a former player and coach of the Kansas City Monarchs, Buck O'Neil.  Over the years he came to be seen both as the memory of the negro leagues and its ambassador.  When one of my sons contacted Buck O'Neil for a school assignment, Buck responded with a signed poster, a replica baseball hat from the "Greys", pamphlets, and a letter.

The year before he died, when O'Neil was 93 years old, he toured the nation's Major League Baseball stadiums (including the Metrodome in Minneapolis) representing the Negro League Museum and it's mostly forgotten players. My wife gave me a book about that tour, "The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America" by Joe Posnanski. One of the stories that sticks with me from the book was an account when Buck reflects back on visiting North Dakota as a ball player:

     "Buck often remembered a white boy staring at him across a quiet street in North Dakota. Suddenly, without betraying any emotion, the boy shouted out the word Buck hated more than any other. The boy did not shout it out with malice or anger in his voice, but with a peculiar playfulness.... The boy looked at Buck with a curious expression. He wanted to know what would happen next.
     "Come here, boy." Buck said.
     The boy walked over. Buck looked him hard in the eye.
     "Why did you say that word?"
     "I don't know." the boy said.
     "That's a hurtful word."
     "I'm sorry."
     "Don't be sorry. Don't say it no more."
     "Okay."
     Then Buck remembered smiling and giving the boy tickets for the baseball game that afternoon. He remembered the boy's eyes lit up, and he looked up at Buck, and across the years Buck never forgot that gaze of spirit and awe. "He came to the game that night and waved to me," Buck would say. "That boy had probably never seen a black man in all his life." (p. 129-130).

This kind of straight talk and love — empowered by the grace of Christ —  is a snapshot of the kind of gutsy love that will advance racial harmony in the church and racial justice in the world for the glory of Christ. As Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be overcome by evil, but over come evil with good."