Remember When? Buck O'Neil Left Lasting Impression 16 Years Ago During Pensacola Visit 

The recent selection of legend Buck O’Neil to Baseball’s Hall of Fame has evoked memories of his impact in Pensacola on special night 16 years ago. .

O’Neil, a former player and manager in the Negro Baseball League, along with being one of the game’s most beloved personalities, was honored June 19, 2005 by the Pensacola Pelicans during “Buck O’Neil Night” at their home field, Pelican Park, at the University of West Florida.

The event attracted an overflow crowd of 2,000-plus fans that night for the Pelicans game. It occurred just 16 months before O’Neil passed away -- a month before his 96th birthday – in October 2006.

“It was an awesome experience. And when I saw this week that he was going to be inducted, it has just made that night even more special,” said Jeff DeWeese, chief financial officer of ODL Services in Pensacola, who attended the game that night with his two young boys.

“What an amazing history he had,” DeWeese said. “Meeting him was so special. The most down-to-earth guy you would have ever wanted to meet.”

O’Neil, who played first base, was finally voted Sunday night, posthumously, into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Early Baseball Era Committee. Formal enshrinement will occur July 24, 2022 in Cooperstown, New York.

Also voted for induction were outfielder Minnie Minoso, who started in the Negro Baseball League before a 17-year career in MLB, plus former manager Gil Hodges, former Minnesota Twins tandem of Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat, plus Bud Fowler, who played in the late 1800’s.

The vote coincided with the Baseball Winter Meetings, which concluded Thursday in Orlando with only minor league teams participating due to the labor dispute with Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association.

“Buck was not only a great ambassador of baseball, he was an ambassador of being a great person,” said Blue Wahoos owner Quint Studer, who attended the Winter Meetings this week with several members of the team’s front office staff. “I think a lot of people have no idea that Buck O’Neil came to Pensacola.”

When he owned the Pelicans, Studer arranged for O’Neil to be in Pensacola in 2005 to help further awareness of his legacy and the importance Negro League Baseball had on baseball, as well as American history.

O’Neil was born in Carabelle, a community in rural Franklin County, about 50 miles southwest from Tallahassee. The family later moved to Sarasota. He began playing in the Negro American League in 1937

The Buck O’Neil Night with the Pelicans was part of Studer’s continued quest to recognize baseball’s past, especially with African-American players, who battled to gain equality.

“When I bought the Pelicans, I got very much into the history of baseball,” Studer said. “From day one, I’ve always been someone who tried to bring down the barriers here. I think it’s very important we recognize the history.

“So back then, we contacted the various local people who played in the Negro Leagues,” Studer said. “We had some of the former Pensacola Seagulls come out to Pelicans games. I felt we were sort of way ahead in thinking about how can do a better job of understanding things.

“I brought Buck in, just because I thought it was such a fascinating story about the Negro Leagues.”

Among O’Neil’s eight decades of involvement in baseball, he became in 1962 the first African-American coach in Major League Baseball when joining the Chicago Cubs coaching staff. One of the team’s star players then was Ernie Banks, who O’Neil managed with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Baseball League when the Cubs signed Banks in 1953.

“Buck was a guy grew up in a terrible racist time when he couldn’t stay in the same hotels,” said Studer, who read O’Neil’s biographical book before he met him in Pensacola. “Even with the Cubs at times, he couldn’t stay in the same hotels. He had such a great career, but he wasn’t in the Hall of Fame. You just assumed this guy would be bitter.

“Certainly, race played against him in the major leagues. But there wasn’t an ounce of bitterness in this guy. He was just constantly looking at the bright side, always looking at the cup being half full sometimes.”

When honored that night at the Pelicans game, O’Neil met every fan who approached and signed autographs at every request. Part of O’Neil’s lasting legacy was establishing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City where the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center was created in his honor.

“What was really neat that night was seeing the players for the Pelicans interact with him,” DeWeese said. “With a lot of them, they were taking pictures. He met with anyone who wanted to meet him. He was so accessible to both the players and the fans.

“For my boys, they always remember meeting Buck O’Neil. It opened up a whole new acknowledgement. They had no idea there was a Negro League Baseball.

“We have still have the commemorative hats. We would go to Major League games as they grew up when teams had Negro League Appreciation Night and we accumulated quite a number of hats.”

That night in Pensacola, O’Neil feigned like he was going to attempt a first pitch from the pitcher’s mound.

“He had everyone thinking, ‘Oh no, he is going to throw it from the mound.’ And then he just walked in and put it into the catcher’s mitt,” Studer said, laughing. “Just a marvelous human being.”