I'll never forget the first time that I'm with Buck O'Neill, and a reporter asked him,

Mr. O'Neill, who was the greatest baseball player that you ever saw?

And I knew he had competed with and against Satchel.

He had competed against Josh Gibson. He had competed against Cool Papa Bell. And I was awaiting

him to mention one of those names. Surely it would be one of those legendary stars.

To my surprise, it was the name Oscar McKinley Charleston, perhaps the greatest

baseball player you've never heard of.

Negro League's icon, the late Buck O'Neill.

The greatest major league ballplay I ever saw was Willie Mays,

but the greatest baseball player I ever saw was Oscar Charleston.

Oscar Charleston played with the Indianapolis ABCs,

and we old time to say the closest thing to Oscar Charleston was Babe Ruth.

Yeah.

Dave Malachar, gentlemen Dave Malachar, would say,

some people ask me, why are you playing so close to the right field foul line?

What they didn't know was that Charleston covered all three fields,

and my responsibility was to make sure of balls down the line and those in foul territory.

That was the defensive prowess of Oscar Charleston. Oscar Charleston, who at age 15, enlisted in World War I,

where he served for several years. He had been a bad boy for the Indianapolis ABCs of the Negro Leagues,

and then would come back from the service and become a star for those same

Indianapolis ABCs. As a matter of fact, he along with the legendary Wilbur Bullet Joe Rogan,

in my estimation, were the Negro League's first two superstars. They were stars among stars.

...