And finally, our sixth member of the Hall of Fame class of 2022 played, managed, coached,

scouted for nearly eight decades before becoming one of the game's great ambassadors.

He played professionally from 1937 to 1955, with newspaper reports proclaiming the three-time

all-star among the finest fielding and hitting first basements in the Negro League.

He stepped away from Kansas City monarchs to serve his country in the Navy before returning

and eventually becoming a player, manager, executive, and scout.

In 1962, he became the first African American to serve as a Major League coach

when the Chicago Cubs promoted him to their Major League staff.

In 1990, he helped establish the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City,

and in 2008, the National Baseball Hall of Fame named its Lifetime Achievement

Award in his honor. John Jordan Buck O'Neill now joins Baseball's Hall of Fame Legends in

Cooperstown.

It's been a little over a week since we got the great news of Buck O'Neill being voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fifteen years after missing narrowly by one vote, as a matter of fact, in 2006.

And needless to say, over this past week, I have been riding a tremendous high. I snuck away to go on vacation, or at least I thought, going on

vacation to Orlando to chase gators and birdies. And let me tell you, there's been more gators

than there have been birdies. But it hadn't been much of a vacation because I've been talking

nonstop virtually everywhere that I go about the excitement and the anxiousness that led us to that

moment of the news of Buck O'Neill getting into the Hall of Fame.

I met Buck O'Neill for the very first time in 1993.

And like virtually everyone who encounters Buck for the first time, it was love at first sight.

I fell in love with this very charming, gentle man who had this passion about this history that I really did not know very much about.

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