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.

He was a two-time Negro Leagues batting champion, war veteran, and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs. When that club was sold, he caught on with the Chicago Cubs, becoming the first black coach in the major leagues.

O’Neil returned to scouting a few years later, and continued with the Cubs until 1988, when his hometown Royals gave him a job as a scout at home games. He attended nearly every game at Kauffman Stadium for years, while dedicating himself to building the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig asked for a moment of silence to be observed before Saturday’s playoff games, giving O’Neil a moment in the spotlight on the fields and in the stadiums where we was so often denied as a player.

“He always had a kind word to say about the game of baseball, regardless of what was going on,” said St. Louis hitting coach Hal McRae, a longtime Royals player who also managed the team. “It was fun to talk to him about the old Negro League, what was going on in the game. He was great for the game.”

Fans at Comerica Park in Detroit observed a moment of silence honoring O’Neil before Game 4 between the Tigers and New York Yankees. The giant scoreboard in left field read: Buck O’Neil 1911-2006, and a few fans applauded as a way of paying respects.

“I will always cherish the opportunities I had to visit with Buck O’Neil,” said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo. “He was a loving man with a heart as big as Kansas City. He belongs in America’s Hall of Fame for his contributions on and off the field.”

In February 2006, it was widely believed O’Neil was headed for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But for the grandson of a man brought to this continent a slave, who moved to Kansas City to avoid racial persecution in the Deep South and was barred from the major leagues by the color of his skin, there was one more disappointment.

For reasons never fully explained, a special 12-person committee commissioned to render final judgments on Negro Leagues and pre-Negro league figures did not vote him in.

“Shed no tears for Buck,” he told friends who had gathered that day. “I couldn’t attend Sarasota High School. That hurt. 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. Before, I wouldn’t even have a chance. But this time I had that chance.”

And then a man who, for decades warmed every cold shoulder leveled his way, did so again.

When it came time to induct the others into the Hall of Fame in late July, it was O’Neil who stood proudly to deliver the day’s first address.

“Buck O’Neil was one of the greatest ambassadors baseball has ever known,” said Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “He was a giant of a man whose wisdom, kindness and generosity of spirit will live on forever in all those whom he touched and who touched him.”

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