Buck O'Neil Marquee Hall of Fame 2022

He played ten seasons from 1937, almost all of them for the Kansas City Monarchs: 368 hits, a .257 average and 378 games at first base, with the league lead in walks in 1938 and 1946 and in runs in 1947. He was chosen for two East-West All-Star games. The figures are partial because these statistics were not kept with the resources the white major leagues had.

He managed the Monarchs afterward and then scouted for the Cubs, who in 1962 made him the first Black coach in the major leagues. He signed Lou Brock and Ernie Banks. He spent his last decades explaining Negro Leagues baseball to anyone who would listen, and a great many people did.

A special committee elected seventeen figures from Black baseball in 2006 and left him off. He spoke at their induction anyway, and died that October at ninety-four. The Early Baseball Era committee elected him in 2022 as an executive, sixteen years too late for him to hear it.