Kansas City Monarchs

On Feb. 28, 1946, Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel, boarded an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles bound for Daytona Beach, Fla., for spring training. There he would try to prove that he was good enough to join the Montreal Royals, the top minor league team in the Brooklyn Dodgers' organization, and integrate professional baseball. It would be more than a year before Robinson played his first game with Brooklyn, on April 15, 1947, breaking Major League Baseball's color line and forever changing baseball and society.

On Feb. 28, 1946, Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel, boarded an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles bound for Daytona Beach, Fla., for spring training. There he would try to prove that he was good enough to join the Montreal Royals, the top minor league team in the Brooklyn Dodgers' organization, and integrate professional baseball. It would be more than a year before Robinson played his first game with Brooklyn, on April 15, 1947, breaking Major League Baseball's color line and forever changing baseball and society.

In his youth, Sammie Haynes was one of the best baseball players around, sharing the diamond with such legends as Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Willie Mays. Still, Haynes never got a chance to prove himself in the major leagues during his heyday in the 1930s and early 1940s because of the color of his skin. Instead of playing for the New York Yankees or the Chicago Cubs, Haynes played for the Kansas City Monarchs, the premier team in the Negro American League.

Buck O'Neil, an All-Star first baseman and manager with the Kansas City Monarchs -- one of the storied franchises of black baseball -- who in his later years became a tireless ambassador for the Negro leagues, died Friday at a hospital in Kansas City, Mo. He was 94. O'Neil had been hospitalized in August and again last month for fatigue. No cause of death was given.

* Grant "Home Run" Johnson: He got his nickname after hitting 60 home runs for a semipro team in Findlay, Ohio, but like his major league counterpart -- Frank "Home Run" Baker -- Johnson's home runs as a professional were more timely than numerous. A shortstop who played for more than a dozen teams, he was considered one of the top players of his era, the late 19th and early 20th century. * Louis Santop: They didn't call the 6-foot-4, 240-pound catcher "Big Bertha" for nothing.

Baseball's-best discussions don't all involve Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds, or "Murderers' Row" versus "The Big Red Machine." In fact, one of the longest-running debates in the game's history stems from the old Negro leagues: Which team was the most powerful, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs or Homestead Grays? Old-timers from that era aren't much help in providing answers.

For Laura Hendryx and her sister Marie Goree, it's a memory that crystallizes the happiest times of their childhood: sitting on the floor pounding their father's brand-new baseball mitt, proud to be charged with the task of breaking it in for a big game he was to play the next day.

This day is much like any other for Buck O'Neil, and that means he's busy. Busy signing scores of posters, bats and books. Photos too--when he's not posing for them. O'Neil strides into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and begins working the crowd. He spots a boy of about 10 and ruffles his hair. The boy presses his hair back into place, and a smile sweeps over his face when he recognizes O'Neil, who is still doing his summer waltz. A hand clasp here, a hug there.

Two sisters in Leimert Park put together a small, heartfelt exhibition. Three hundred kids play in a baseball tournament on the Conrad Hilton Field at Martin Luther King Jr. Park. And a summer holiday weekend becomes a warm tribute to a man named Sammie Haynes, a man who died three years ago, a man who was blind in his eyes but who saw with his heart and who always loved the kids, baseball and the old Negro Leagues.

Buck O'Neil, an All-Star first baseman and manager with the Kansas City Monarchs -- one of the storied franchises of black baseball -- who in his later years became a tireless ambassador for the Negro leagues, died Friday at a hospital in Kansas City, Mo. He was 94. O'Neil had been hospitalized in August and again last month for fatigue. No cause of death was given.

Baseball's-best discussions don't all involve Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds, or "Murderers' Row" versus "The Big Red Machine." In fact, one of the longest-running debates in the game's history stems from the old Negro leagues: Which team was the most powerful, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs or Homestead Grays? Old-timers from that era aren't much help in providing answers.

By Sunday, there will be 35 individuals affiliated with the black baseball era enshrined in the baseball Hall of Fame. Buck O'Neil, generally considered the foremost ambassador and a living history of that bygone period, will not be among them. For many who saw O'Neil play well over half a century ago and others who have since seen and listened to his passion for the game, that's an injustice. "I'm a big fan of Buck O'Neil," baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote in an e-mail.

* Grant "Home Run" Johnson: He got his nickname after hitting 60 home runs for a semipro team in Findlay, Ohio, but like his major league counterpart -- Frank "Home Run" Baker -- Johnson's home runs as a professional were more timely than numerous. A shortstop who played for more than a dozen teams, he was considered one of the top players of his era, the late 19th and early 20th century. * Louis Santop: They didn't call the 6-foot-4, 240-pound catcher "Big Bertha" for nothing.

This day is much like any other for Buck O'Neil, and that means he's busy. Busy signing scores of posters, bats and books. Photos too--when he's not posing for them. O'Neil strides into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and begins working the crowd. He spots a boy of about 10 and ruffles his hair. The boy presses his hair back into place, and a smile sweeps over his face when he recognizes O'Neil, who is still doing his summer waltz. A hand clasp here, a hug there.

Two sisters in Leimert Park put together a small, heartfelt exhibition. Three hundred kids play in a baseball tournament on the Conrad Hilton Field at Martin Luther King Jr. Park. And a summer holiday weekend becomes a warm tribute to a man named Sammie Haynes, a man who died three years ago, a man who was blind in his eyes but who saw with his heart and who always loved the kids, baseball and the old Negro Leagues.

For Laura Hendryx and her sister Marie Goree, it's a memory that crystallizes the happiest times of their childhood: sitting on the floor pounding their father's brand-new baseball mitt, proud to be charged with the task of breaking it in for a big game he was to play the next day.

By Sunday, there will be 35 individuals affiliated with the black baseball era enshrined in the baseball Hall of Fame. Buck O'Neil, generally considered the foremost ambassador and a living history of that bygone period, will not be among them. For many who saw O'Neil play well over half a century ago and others who have since seen and listened to his passion for the game, that's an injustice. "I'm a big fan of Buck O'Neil," baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote in an e-mail.

Baseball's greatest story will be rewritten again Monday as the sport celebrates the 66th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the major leagues' color barrier. Yet the man who wrote the story will be forgotten. In every game, players from every team will wear 42, the number on the back of Robinson's jersey when he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Yet nobody will sit in the stands with a manual typewriter atop their knees in memory of the man who, even as he wrote about integration on the field, was barred from the press box because he was black.

In his youth, Sammie Haynes was one of the best baseball players around, sharing the diamond with such legends as Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Willie Mays. Still, Haynes never got a chance to prove himself in the major leagues during his heyday in the 1930s and early 1940s because of the color of his skin. Instead of playing for the New York Yankees or the Chicago Cubs, Haynes played for the Kansas City Monarchs, the premier team in the Negro American League.