This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Up next, a story from Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League's baseball museum in Kansas

City, Missouri.

Today, Bob shares with us a story about one of his friends, Buck O'Neill.

Take it away, Bob.

Our guests walk into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

And you literally walk through the turnstiles into an old ballpark.

And the first thing that you see is the field.

The Field of Legends.

And the Field of Legends is a mock baseball diamond that houses 10 of 12 life-size bronze sculptures of Negro League

Greats and they are cast in position as if they were playing a game.

Now on the outside looking in is my dear friend the late great Buck O'Neill, who was the only one of our collection of statues that wasn't in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Well, thankfully, on December 5th of 2021, Buck O'Neill received enough votes to now be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame

15 years after he missed by one vote.

I'll never forget that day as long as my mother would say I'm in my natural mind.

It was the morning of February 27, 2006, and Buck O'Neill and I

left home with suitcases packed with airline tickets that the Hall of Fame had purchased for us.

That's how sure we were that Buck was going to get in. This was just a mere formality. And so there was a group of 12 Negro

League historians, researchers, educators. They were to gather down in Tampa, Florida, where they were

going to make the decision on the final group of Negro leaders who had gone through the process

and made the final ballot, the late great Buck had gone through the process and made the final

ballot, the late great Buck O'Neill, and now the late great Mini Minooso were the only two

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