KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Men and women dabbed at their eyes. People hugged quietly and ducked into little private spaces to speak in hushed tones.

Seventeen people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues eras were voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but not Buck O’Neil.

“God’s been good to me,” the 94-year-old said after results of Monday’s special election were announced. “You can see that, can’t you? It didn’t happen. They didn’t think Buck was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. That’s the way they thought about it and that’s the way it is, so we’re going to live with that. Now, if I’m a hall-of-famer for you, that’s all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck.

“Don’t shed any tears ’cause I’m not going to the Hall of Fame.”

Everyone at Negro Leagues Baseball Museum broke into applause.

“You think about this,” he said. “Here I am, the grandson of a slave. And here the whole world was excited about whether I was going into the Hall of Fame or not. We’ve come a long ways. Before, we never even thought about anything like that. America, you’ve really grown and you’re still growing.”

O’Neil and Minnie Minoso were the only living candidates among the 39 on the ballot considered by a 12-person committee.

While his statistics during a long career as a player and player/manager were not the greatest, he won two Negro League batting titles, had a successful career as a player/manager with the Kansas City Monarchs and become the first black coach in the major leagues.

Most importantly, everyone thought, were the contributions he’s made traveling the country keeping the legacy of black baseball alive.

He has been the face, voice and inspiration behind Kansas City’s Negro Leagues Museum. In the opinion of many, those 17 who got in ahead of him may never have even been considered at all if not for O’Neil’s tireless efforts to tell their story at a time when the country was ready to forget all about them.

A couple of hundred of O’Neil’s friends and supporters gathered at the museum early Monday afternoon to be part of a happy celebration. They could hardly believe the bad news.

A Florida native, O’Neil has made Kansas City his home since moving out of the Deep South to escape racial persecution.

“I couldn’t attend Sarasota High School. That hurt,” he said. “I couldn’t attend the University of Florida. That hurt. But not going into the Hall of Fame, that ain’t going to hurt me that much, no. I’m still going to be in Cooperstown representing these guys that’s in the Hall of Fame. So shed no tears for me. This is old Buck.”

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For him and all the others, just to have an opportunity to get into the hall is worthy of celebration itself, he said.

“Before, I wouldn’t even have a chance. But this time I had that chance,” he said. “I didn’t get in because not enough people thought I should be in. But I did have the chance. I was on the ballot, man.”