For new class, timing was everything
Though O’Neil, Miñoso have passed, their legacies leave plenty to celebrate
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — When John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Jr. wrote his memoir, in 1996, he called it “I Was Right On Time.” It was a challenging, counterintuitive title for the life story of a man barred from playing Major League Baseball because of his skin color.
But O’Neil looked at everything through the lens of timing, his niece, Dr. Angela Terry, said Sunday at his Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. O’Neil, the first Black coach in MLB history, six decades ago with the
Chicago Cubs, believed there was always good to be found — right here, right now — if only you looked for it.
“In this light, he would remind all of us that his playing career was in the Negro leagues, and that today he was being inducted into the same class as a Black baseball pioneer, Bud Fowler, and a former Negro league All-Star, Minnie Miñoso,” Terry said in her speech to a crowd of roughly 35,000 at the Clark Sports Center. “For those of us who knew Uncle John, can’t you almost hear him excitedly voicing one of his favorite phrases: ‘Man, oh, man, nothing could be better!’”
Leave it to O’Neil, a master storyteller who brought the Negro leagues to life for millions of modern fans, to come up with the perfect tagline for an imperfect afternoon headlined by David Ortiz, the slugger who led the Boston Red Sox to three championships this century.
O’Neil lived into his 90s, like Miñoso, who came from Cuba to become one of the best hitters in the American League in the 1950s. But the call to Cooperstown came too late for both to enjoy it. O’Neil died in 2006 at age 94, Miñoso in 2015 at 91.
Gil Hodges, a stalwart first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers,
was inducted 50 years after his death of a heart attack in 1972, at age 47, when he was at spring training managing the New York Mets. His widow, Joan, 95, watched from home in Brooklyn and his daughter, Irene, spoke for the family.
“What makes today’s recognition especially bittersweet is that Minnie faced many obstacles to arrive at this day,” Miñoso’s widow, Sharon, said in her speech. “As a dark-skinned Afro-Latino at the height of segregation, he knew of the racial and cultural challenges that he would endure
veterans committee. During discussions about all the candidates by the 16-member group, supporters pointed to his late-arriving entry into the major leagues and the bias he faced during his career as a Black Latino from Cuba.
Miñoso was again denied, receiving nine of 16 votes. Santo, who died the previous December, finally got in. Hall of Famer Juan Marichal, a member of the committee, said Miñoso was “responsible for so many careers of the (Latino) players that came behind him, including myself,” suggesting his status as a pioneer for Latino players had been overlooked. Tribune baseball writer Phil Rogers called it “the Hall’s most shameful exclusion.”
Miñoso’s final heartbreak came in 2014, when he earned only eight of the 12 votes needed by a 15-member committee, which wound up electing no one.
“I don’t know what player, out of the era of the ‘50s and
‘60s, would be more deserving than Minnie,” Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said after the announcement.
Miñoso died the next year. After the 2020 Golden Era ballot was postponed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Miñoso gained six votes on the 2021 ballot, finishing with 14 votes from the 16-member committee that included former Commissioner Bud Selig, an influential supporter.
They say life is all about timing, and Miñoso’s time finally arrived. It was too late for him to revel in the celebration, but at least he made it. Though baseball writers and voting Hall of Fame players let him down, in the end Miñoso was aided by MLB’s reckoning with its shameful, racist past, which led to the Negro Leagues officially being recognized as a major league in 2020.
The addition of Miñoso’s Negro League stats pushed him over the 2,000-hit mark (2,113), while his career OPS of .848 was ahead of Hall of Fame outfielders including Reggie Jackson (.846), Carl Yastrzemski (.842) and Kirby Puckett (.837). No one handed it to Miñoso. He earned his way in.
The curious thing about the Baseball Hall of Fame is hardly anyone remembers the struggles many members had in getting there. Once they are in, they are all part of the same select group of baseball elites, and their plaques don’t note the years of heartache and waiting.
Miñoso’s love for the game ultimately might have worked against him. He never wanted to stop hitting. To some, his name was synonymous with legendary stuntman Bill Veeck, the maverick Sox owner who brought him out of retirement to play in 1976, and then again in 1980, to tie a record of playing in five decades.
Veeck was long gone by 1990, when Reinsdorf was willing to give Miñoso an at-bat during the final days of old Comiskey Park, which would have made it six decades instead of five.
“I promised him this years ago,” Reinsdorf told Tribune baseball writer Jerome Holtzman before the 1990 season. “We have to be sure this isn’t a farce. I haven’t thought the whole thing through, but we don’t want him to embarrass himself or baseball.”
By summer, the Sox were in a heated race with the Oakland A’s in the American League West. The idea of giving a 67-yearold Miñoso an at-bat down the stretch was debated, and Miñoso was told he might have to pass a medical exam.
“That medical talk is bull,” he said. “‘I can play. I feel every day is my birthday. Each day I feel I’m reborn. I’d be honored to play.”
But commissioner Fay Vincent put a halt to the plan, citing “the best interests of the game.” Many sprung to Miñoso’s defense.
“We know we can’t live forever, we know our heroes can’t be heroic forever, but the dream makes the reality endurable,” Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome wrote. “Baseball ought to indulge dreams. That’s why it exists.”
On a side note, MLB in 2012 allowed former Cubs player Adam Greenberg to sign a one-day contract with the
Miami Marlins as a publicity stunt, seven years after his only career at-bat ended with him getting beaned on the first pitch he saw. No one seemed to mind the stunt, which went off as planned.
The owners eventually fired Vincent, and in September 1993 the Sox again announced that a 70-year-old Miñoso would play an inning and lead off against the Seattle Mariners. But the Sox were on their way to the playoffs, and ace Jack McDowell led a players revolt, which prompted general manager Ron Schueler to cancel the plan, citing “several players (who) have voiced their displeasure.”
“The team has other things to focus on that are far more important,” Schueler said. “After talking with Minnie, we have decided that he will not play.”
Miñoso understood. He wanted only to make fans happy and, of course, he loved to hit.
Before a 1991 old-timers game at Wrigley Field, after Miñoso finished smoking line drives in the batting cage, I asked him if he ever would give up hitting. “It’s my life,” he replied.
It was a life well lived.
And on Sunday, after nearly six decades of being rejected, Miñoso finally got his day in the sun.