Remembering Buck O'Neill and the Kansas City Monarchs

 1/18

Buck O'Neill and the Kansas City Monarchs

I wanted to have this week’s theme for hats on(off)  to reflect Martin Luther King Jr’s commemoration theme.  I first looked at how the NFL teams in last weekend’s playoffs wore pullover hats declaring JUSTICE EQUITY OPPORTUNITY. 

Steelers Cap

(I had tried to get a Steelers one but they were sold out…). I then related how MLK day has long been a special day for the NBA  with special day games and uniforms.  The Memphis Grizzlies, e.g. had a jersey with a font inspired by the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis whee King delivers his last speech. 

Grizzlies "I am a man" jersey

And the Atlanta Hawks have a jersey bearing Kings’ MLK initials. 

Hawks MLK jersey

Having none of these  available, I decided to honor Buck O’Neil and the Kansas City Monarchs of Negro League baseball fame. The Monarchs were the longest lasting Negro league team stretching from 1920-1965. They rosters included such legendary players as Satchel Paige snd Ernie Banks.  They were Jackie Robinson’s last team before the Dodgers and the Yankees’ first Black player, Elston Howard, had been a Monarch. In fact, following integration, the Monarchs were the  single greatest conduit from the Negro Leagues to Major League Baseball. And of course, the Monarchs were Buck O’ Neil’s team.

O’Neil spent his entire playing career with the Monarchs from  1938-1955. He would then go on to be baseball’s first Black coach with the Chicago Cubs and later serve the Cubs as  the first MLB Black scout. He was responsible for bringing Ernie (Let’s play two, Mr.Cub) Banks to the team from the Monarchs.

 On July 17, 2006, At age 94, Buck signed a one day contract with the independent American Association Kansas City (Kansas) T-Bones in an effort to be the oldest player to appear in a professional baseball game. He led off, drew an intentional walk and then “retired.” Later that year, following  his death, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  And in 2021, finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was instrumental in  the creation of Kansas City’s Negro  League Museum .

The T-Bones have now been renamed the Kansas City Monarchs in honor of the original Monarchs, 

Today’s hat’s off to the Kansas City Monarchs. The hat (on) is a 1945 Monarch hat (Jackie Robinson’s year) paired with a Buck O’Neill number 22 Monarch jersey. 

Living in cornavirusworld 149: Violence. Nonviolence. We've been here before

8/26

Convent Garden: an oasis

the Monarchs

Today I wear my Kansas City Monarchs hat. The last Negro league team Jackie Robinson played for before joining the Dodgers organization. It was also the team of Buck O’Neil, player and manager of the Monarchs from 1938 to 1955.  He even made a final  plate appearance for the Kansas City T-Bones of the Norrhern League in 2006 at age 94 years, 8 months and 5 days. And was the first African-American signed as a scout by the Chicago Cubs. It’s mainly  due to the Monarchs  (and Buck) that the Negro League Museum is in Kansas City.  In normal years, Major League baseball celebrates "Jackie Day" on April 15th, the anniversary of his debut.  But in coronavirusworld, they've moved it to August 28, the anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. 

Buck

I also talk about my “happy hour” yesterday afternoon with former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris who I was surprised to find was still live. Harris was the Bernie before Bernie.  Hard to realize that Oklahoma actually had a democratic socialist Senator as late as 1972.  I actually was a Harris delegate at the 1976 Oklahoma Democratic caucus. Harris campaigned across the country in a Winnebago and frequently stayed at the homes of farmers and union workers. He ultimately lost to Jimmy Carter but continued to champion Native American and working people’s rights throughout his career. The talk was hosted by Jim Hightower, his former campaign manager who joked, “I made Fred what he is today, a professor at eh University of New Mexico.” He came very close to being chosen as Hubert Humphry’s running mate in 1968. Often forgotten is Humphry’s roots in the old Minnesota Farm-Labor Party. Harris reminded us of the 1917 Green Corn rebellion when wobblies, unionists, blacks and farmers came together to oppose the draft and Word War !. Senator Harris’ point was the progressive uprising we see today has roots deep in the American soil that have been buried too long. The Bernie revolution is part of a long heritage of American class struggle. Later in the conversation, Senator Harris introduced us to Teresa Leon Fernandez, whose family roots go back to the 17th century as a Nuevo Mexicana, seeking to join the progressive left caucus in congress. 

Our conversation this morning focuses on contemplation and activism but quickly moves into violence vs. non-violence, the issue of discernment . How Dietrich Bobhoeffer returned to Germany to join in a plot to kill Hitler, saying violence was wrong except when necessary. Who defines necessary? Some of us agree with a traditional reformed “Just war” theory while others are absolutists. What about Gandhi? Gandhi was reported to have said non-violence would not have stopped Hitler. I recall how Archbishop Romero came to accept violence in defense of the innocent . And Franz Fanon’s argument that violence is necessary to free the Wretched of the Earth from colonialism.  But then Robespiere…John Brown….Lenin…Mao? 

And the problematic issue of those who truly believe that abortion is murder feeling called to enter clinics with guns. 

We recall that for Martin Luther King, Jr., non-violence was a strategy that works because it drew violence for the other side and exposed its nature. I say that non-violence elicits violent response because it presents itself as morally superior to which Joel responds because non-violence is morally superior.

Gandhi believed in satyagraha, soul force. That even in the midst of violence one must hold onto the spirit of peace. 

We are constantly faced with the question so what then is possible?

What to do with Jesus’ “not peace but a sword”? Without diving immediately into self-defensive metaphor argumentation. 

Steve P speaks of Brevard Childs’ canonical criticism where the Bible is taken seriously as is, interpreting one part by the others, replacing the entire historical critical method. Sigh.

I ponder how I can occasionally look at the world of turtles, egrets, squirrels and feel that everything in creation is perfect just the way it is and at the same time see the sacredness of the everflowing stream of the people’s struggle for justice. I live with this tension, this dichotomy. 

Sam says the Gita says God and self are the same. 

True belief vs. collective belief. Facts and truth are not the same. But intriguing, even passionate conversations aside, there is no question we are collectively facing a moment of truth…..

                                                                                                   ****

where Hamilton lived before he hit Broadway

Today I decide to do the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K course. Through Sugar Hill, the old ritzy part of Harlem. Convent Garden. Past Alexander Hamilton’s home, an untouched 1802 Federalist rural home in the midst of modern Harlem. I see students in line registering  for their charter schools, receiving their supplies. Along the southern edge of the City College of New York, once known as the Harvard of the working class when every citizen of New York City was guaranteed health, housing  work and education. Then back up St. Nicholas. Tim the trombone player somehow turns up at 136th street. It’s a reminder that we’ve been here before. 

Kenosha, Wisconsin is in flames in response to yet another point blank police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.  Yesterday a 17 year old self-styled member of “the militia,” inspired by his president, drove 20 miles and with an AR15 assault rifle opened fire on innocent  protestors killing two, then walked calmly past the police. 

Beginning with the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA players, in compete despair and frustration, refuse to play their games. The WNBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer soon follow. They are not just athletes, entertainers, they  are adult people with consciences.  Of course the President and his ghostly son-in-law Jared mock the players. Why is so hard to see? Moment of truth….

I finish the night by watching Anna Deveare Smith’s one-woman tour de force Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. Her docudrama exploration of the Rodney King savage police beating and subsequent rebellions. Yes, we’ve been here before. Far too many times.