Charlie Riedel / AP

Buck O'Neil, seen in this file photo from 2005, stands with a statue of himself at the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo. O'Neil, baseball's charismatic Negro Leagues ambassador who barnstormed with Satchel Paige and inexplicably fell one vote shy of the Hall of Fame, died Friday. He was 94.

updated 6:25 p.m. ET Oct. 11, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Baseballs left on a table, signed by dozens of his fans, told stories of how he touched their lives. Flowers piled up on another table near a portrait of the dapper, gregarious man who came to embody the story of the Negro Leagues.

Friends and strangers alike gathered on Saturday at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil.

O’Neil died on Friday night from complications of congestive heart failure and recently diagnosed bone marrow cancer at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, said Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the museum. He was 94.

Some of the tributes talked of how O’Neil played catch with children, or never turned down an autograph request. One had a bible verse, Matthew 25:21, that read in part, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Children and adults wandered through the museum, many dressed in the red and white Kansas City Monarchs jerseys and caps that O’Neil made famous. More than usual paused in front of a glass case that held O’Neil’s first baseman’s glove, a trophy inducting him into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, and other trinkets.

“I’m going to miss him, because he was always very positive with me and was always rooting for me,” Mets manager Willie Randolph said before Game 3 of New York’s NL playoff series against Los Angeles.

“As a matter of fact, when I got the job, he left a voice mail congratulating me. It goes, ‘Hi, Skippah. Nice goin’.’ I still have that on my phone, and once in a while, I just play it back with the other messages I get. It means a lot to me,” he said. “He’s someone I’ll always remember.”

The White House released a statement from President Bush praising O'Neil as representing "the best of America's national pastime. He devoted his long and full life to baseball, and refused to allow injustice and discrimination to diminish his love of the game and his joyous, generous spirit. Laura and I extend our sympathies to his family and friends, and on behalf of all Americans we give thanks for the life of one of the great ambassadors in baseball history.

O’Neil will lie in state on Friday at the museum’s Field of Legends gallery, where well-wishers can pay their respects. A private funeral and burial service are scheduled for next Saturday at a place and time to be determined, and a separate memorial service open to the public will follow.

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“We lost, obviously, a great piece of not only sports history, but American history with the death of Buck O’Neil,” said Kendrick, who smiled when he said O’Neil had rested comfortably during his last few hours.

“Buck was 94 years old. Buck lived a wonderful life,” Kendrick said. “But Buck knew, as well as we all knew, none of us are born to live forever. The great man that he was, the great mind that he was, the great visionary that he was, he prepared us for this day.”

Kendrick said he hopes the John “Buck” O’Neil Education and Research Center, to be located in a YMCA around the corner from the museum, will serve as a tribute to O’Neil. It was in that building decades ago that the Negro Leagues were formed.

A celebration of O’Neil’s 95th birthday will go on as scheduled Nov. 11 at Kansas City’s Starlight Theatre. The guest list of about 750 includes many baseball greats as well as other celebrities and political leaders.

And because O’Neil “never missed an opportunity to talk to a woman in a red dress,” Kendrick said all women are asked to wear that color.

His legacy is virtually unmatched, becoming “an overnight sensation at 82,” as O’Neil liked to say, when Ken Burns featured him in his epic documentary, “Baseball.”

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