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Sarasotan Buck O'Neil Inducted to Baseball Hall of Fame

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Pedro Sierra will tell you how fortunate he was to know Sarasotan John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil. On July 24, in Cooperstown, New York, O'Neil joined an exclusive fraternity. In the "Home of Baseball," O'Neil was officially made a member of the Hall of Fame's Class of 2022.

Elected to the Hall last December by the Early Baseball Era Committee, O'Neil, who passed in 2006 at age 94, is remembered as one of the most popular and successful participants in the defunct Negro American League.

Born in Carrabelle, Florida, and raised in Sarasota, O'Neil found success as a player and later as manager of the famed Kansas City Monarchs. A couple of selections to the East-West All-Star games, and one Negro Leagues World Series Championships solidified (1942) O'Neil among the elite figures in the game for 17 seasons.

By 1962, with racial segregation in baseball a thing of the past, the final official Negro American League season would be played.

Today, there are fewer and fewer former participants in the Negro Leagues around to tell stories, firsthand.

Former pitcher Pedro Sierra is one former player that knew O'Neil.

Breaking in, first, with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1954, then spending four seasons (1955-'58) pitching for the Detroit Stars, Sierra initially came across O'Neil in 1952.

"He (O'Neil) was managing the Monarchs," said Sierra while signing autographs on Pioneer Street last weekend in Cooperstown - just one block from the famed baseball museum. "There wasn't a more outgoing man in the game. There was no hollering. "Buck" was very nurturing."

Sierra and O'Neil's' careers first crossed paths in Cuba. According to the pitcher who was born in Havana in 1938, they would see each other during the winter months. This was the time of year when baseball players Stateside would travel to warmer climates to sharpen their skills, and supplement their income.

"(O'Neil) was the voice of the Negro Leagues. He did so much for so many," explains Sierra, who was selected for the 1956 East-West All-Star Game at Chicago's Comiskey Park.

In recent years, through Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, former Negro Leagues players like Sierra qualify for a monthly pension.

Back in 2006, when 17 former members of the Negro Leagues were inducted into the Hall of Fame, and O'Neil wasn't among this group, people like Sierra who knew the contributions made by the Monarchs great were disappointed.

Sierra is now among those cheering longest and loudest that his friend is officially a Hall of Famer.

There wasn't much O'Neil didn't do in baseball.

After leaving the Monarchs, O'Neil became a scout for the Chicago Cubs, and later would break another barrier in the game, when becoming the first Black coach for the club and in MLB history during the 1962 season.

O'Neil's contributions to baseball spanned eight decades. From barnstorming across American soil to playing games in Cuba, Mexico, and anywhere a field and audiences were in abundance, O'Neil tied his spikes and slipped on his uniform - for the love of the game.

Last weekend, finally, the game of baseball gave back the love long earned to one of its all-time greatest stewards. Baseball (and particularly Sarasotans) have much to be proud of.

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