A Walk Through 60 Years of Baseball History
No institution is more scrupulously attentive to baseball’s history and traditions than the Hall of Fame. For baseball fans, a trip to the Cooperstown, N.Y., shrine is like a pilgrimage to a holy place — Lourdes, say, for Roman Catholics or Ditka’s downtown restaurant for aspiring Chicago tough guys.
No one doubts the Hall’s good intentions as a guardian of the game, and yet it rarely makes a move (or declines to make one) that doesn’t ignite controversy.
Somehow, Buck O’Neil was omitted when a group of black baseball pioneers was enshrined in 2006. O’Neil, a Negro Leagues standout, might well have been the most versatile, amiable, influential black man in baseball history, Jackie Robinson notwithstanding. And he was slighted when the game’s hierarchy sought to right one of its most egregious wrongs....
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No one doubts the Hall’s good intentions as a guardian of the game, and yet it rarely makes a move (or declines to make one) that doesn’t ignite controversy.
Somehow, Buck O’Neil was omitted when a group of black baseball pioneers was enshrined in 2006. O’Neil, a Negro Leagues standout, might well have been the most versatile, amiable, influential black man in baseball history, Jackie Robinson notwithstanding. And he was slighted when the game’s hierarchy sought to right one of its most egregious wrongs....