Posnanski: Memories of Buck O’Neil
From SABR member Joe Posnanski at NBC Sports on November 14, 2014:
Every single day, I think at least once about Buck O’Neil. I wrote my first book, “The Soul of Baseball,” about him, but his impact on my life goes so much beyond that. Just the other day, I got an email from somebody I hadn’t talked to in years. We’d had a disagreement, and to be blunt about it, he’d said some pretty indefensible things. He wasn’t someone I considered a friend anyway, so it was pretty easy to forget all about him.
Well, it turns out that he has fallen on hard times. He was writing to apologize … and, more than that, to ask for a small favor. I read the email a couple of times, and there was a single question that overpowered my mind: “Why SHOULD I forgive him?” There seemed absolutely nothing for me to gain by forgiving him, nothing at all, and his apology was muted at best, and he’d been so spiteful when it suited his purposes.
Why should I forgive him?
And then I thought about Buck O’Neil. And everything else melted away.
Read the full article here: http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/buck-oneil-joe-posnanski/
Originally published: November 14, 2014. Last Updated: November 14, 2014.