When I umpire a baseball game, it got into my system.

I felt it.

It got good to me.

I want to call a safe, like I do a split for a safe sign.

A boom-boom play just got next to me. All I know Bob Motley, he just got

into my sister. So I see a close play, he just went all over me. I just jump all up and

there. I might jump over a player.

In Buck O'Neill's seven decades in baseball, he was only thrown out of a game once.

Who showed him the exit? The late-great Bob Motley. The fussing that turned into cussing

was over a disputed infield fly rule interpretation when Buck was managing the Kansas City Monarch.

I remember asking Bob Motley, why did you throw Buck out of that game?

He chuckled and said, he said the magic words.

And Motley would joyously recount with a hearty chuckle, I had to ring him up.

That night, the two antagonists had to sleep in the same bed together

because there weren't enough hotel room to go around.

I turned my back to the sucker.

O'Neill would eventually delight in saying in that beautiful rich baritone voice of his.

The two were lifelong friends and were part of a group of dedicated individuals who helped

establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in 1990 in a little

tiny one-room office in Kansas City, Missouri's historic 18th and Vine Jazz District.

Bob Motley, like others in the group, took turns paying the monthly rent to keep our hopes and dreams alive of building a facility

that would pay rightful tribute to not only one of the greatest chapters in baseball history,

...