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K.C. Shows Buck O’Neil Some Love

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Negro Leaguer Gets Section, 12-Hour Coverage

“Buck O’Neil is one of the very, very few who is well-known and well-loved by almost everybody in town. He’s like a whirling dervish, almost everywhere,” Sports Editor Holly Lawton of the Kansas City Star told Journal-isms Monday.

 

 

And so O’Neil, star first baseman and manager in the Negro leagues and a pioneering scout and coach in the major leagues, became the subject of an eight-page special tribute Sunday after he died Friday night in Kansas City at age 94.

On Kansas City television, his death prompted 12 hours of live programming starting Friday night on Time Warner’s MetroSports channel, said John Sprugel, assistant general manager. “As soon as we found out, we did two hours Friday, then we came back and did 10 hours” the next day.

The station took close to 100 phone calls, interviewed such sports figures as Lou Brock, Ernie Banks and George Brett, and reached into its archive of 100 hours of O’Neil footage.

Why? “A lot of it was because of his association with baseball and his role in the Negro leagues and keeping that story alive,” Sprugel said. “Overshadowing all of that, he was a champion of humanity. He wanted to meet you. He cared deeply about everyone. There were people totally outside of baseball who’ve come to love Buck; that’s because of the person that he is.”

As Richard Goldstein wrote in the New York Times obituary, “O’Neil was a smooth fielder and a two-time league-leading hitter with the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the Negro leagues’ most acclaimed teams, and he also managed them. He spent more than three decades working in the Chicago Cubs’ system, becoming one of organized baseball’s first black scouts and then the first black coach in the majors. In all, his baseball career spanned seven decades.

“O’Neil had been chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., since its founding in 1997 and made scores of appearances to raise funds for it. He bore witness to the exploits of figures like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston and Ray Dandridge. All of those players were inducted into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown belatedly, their prime seasons in the Negro leagues coming in the years before Jackie Robinson broke the modern major league color barrier.

“For all his accomplishments, O’Neil was little known to most baseball fans until he was interviewed for Ken Burns‘s nine-part 1994 television documentary ‘Baseball,'” Goldstein continued. “Still active into his 80’s—he was a special-assignment scout for the Kansas City Royals then—O’Neil told viewers of the golden age of the Negro leagues, the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

O’Neil dominated the Kansas City Star’s Web page both Sunday and Monday, with pieces by Star sports columnists, videos and a guest book. The pieces came from the special section, which had been prepared the week before.

Nationally, ESPN “did an obit in SportsCenter shows Saturday night…. On Sunday morning, anchor Jay Harris did a nice verbal tribute,” spokesman Dan Quinn said. On PBS, correspondent Spencer Michels reported on O’Neil’s passing Monday on the “News Hour With Jim Lehrer.” CNN and the broadcast networks made brief mentions over the weekend. Sports Illustrated planned to make his death one of the short items in its “Scorecard” column in the Oct. 16 issue, spokeswoman Karen Cmochowsky told Journal-isms.

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Foley’s Role in 2000 Election Recalled

Disgraced Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., played a role in the disputed Florida vote controversy in 2000, columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson is reminding readers.

Foley gave the Republicans’ weekly radio address on Nov. 18, 2000, shortly after the election, defending his home of Palm Beach County against claims that votes were wrongly put in the Republican column. (Remember hanging chads?)

“I believe that all of us must take that proverbial deep breath, calm down and be patient. But we also must hope that the cycle of filing lawsuits and appeals ends, and ends soon. It would be a sad commentary if this election ends up being taken out of the hands of the American people and decided by the courts.” Foley said.

In Hutchinson’s view, Foley “enraged thousands of Democratic leaning black, Jewish, and elderly voters by passionately and publicly defending the manipulation, exclusion, and possible outright fraud of their votes.”

There was other commentary on Foley:

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George McElroy, Houston J-Pioneer, Dies at 84

“George McElroy, the first black columnist to write for the Houston Post who a week ago won a lifetime achievement award, died Saturday from acute respiratory distress syndrome at a Houston hospital. He was 84,” Sarah Viren and Alexis Grant reported Monday in the Houston Chronicle.

“As the first black with a journalism degree to teach the trade to Houston high school students, McElroy broke down racial barriers and inspired generations of journalists.

“He did have a pride and a need to promote the positiveness of African-Americans,” Sonceria Messiah-Jiles, publisher of the Houston Defender who was mentored by McElroy, said in the story. “His articles were the only exposure the general market had to a black perspective back in the time when very few people had the opportunity or the access to hear the other side,” she said.

In the old Houston Post, “Beside a black-and-white sketch of McElroy’s face each week ran a story of one person’s life—both the great and the common. Through the years he profiled barbers and beauty queens, TV producers and police chiefs, most of them black.”

A daughter, Kathleen McElroy, is dining editor of the New York Times.

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Hunter-Gault Sees Self-Censorship on Africa

Veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, having spent 10 years in Africa, says she believes “a lot of journalists self-censor, because they don’t think there is going to be receptivity to their Africa reporting. That self-censorship becomes a self-defeating and self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Hunter-Gault, who has reported on Africa for National Public Radio, PBS’ “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and CNN, was speaking to allAfrica.com about her recent book, “New News Out of Africa.”

“We have to understand that the audience is not tuning out on Africa. It’s the media decision makers who decide that Americans aren’t interested,” she said.

“. . . Now, I have to say, that’s changing a little bit. I have friends who still work at CNN and who’ve been doing great work, people like Jeff Koinange. He’s getting more things on CNN, and Anderson Cooper is becoming more and more interested in the continent.”

Hunter-Gault urged “Journalists who are invested in trying to get news of the continent out . . . to keep slogging, keep on fighting for space. They have to be creative in the way they propose and sell stories.”

She said African journalists were becoming more interested in economics to see how their continent fit into the worldwide picture, and observed that many journalists don’t start with open minds.

“I was reading an interesting interview with [South African President] Thabo Mbeki and an international correspondent. No matter what the president would say, this guy would come back with an argument. The president kept having to say, ‘But you’re not listening to me.’ You know, we may or may not agree, but we journalists are not policy makers; we’re there to get information,” she said.

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Bob Butler Laid Off from CBS Diversity Job

Bob Butler, former reporter at KCBS radio in San Francisco and president of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association, has been laid off from his job as director of diversity for the Viacom Television Stations Group and Infinity Radio, Butler confirmed to Journal-isms, saying his last day would be Oct. 31.

In an e-mail to fellow members of the National Association of Black Journalists when he was named in September 2005, Butler said, “My new responsibilities include helping train the next generation of radio and television journalists of color and RECRUITING PEOPLE OF COLOR FOR MANAGEMENT POSITIONS IN NEWS, SALES AND ENGINEERING. In effect, I’ve become a ‘suit.'”

“The industry lacks diversity. We in the journalism organizations of color know it, the industry knows it,” he wrote to Journal-isms then.

CBS spokeswoman Shannon Jacobs declined to comment Monday on Butler’s situation.

According to Viacom’s Web site, the television stations group consisted of 39 television stations, reaching 15 of the top 20 television markets, when Butler joined. The division included 20 owned-and-operated CBS stations, 18 UPN-affiliated stations and one independent station.

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