Buck O'Neil and the Buck O'Neil Award

Joe Posnanski has a great post on Buck O'Neil and Roland Hemond, the winner of the Buck O'Neil award.  The whole thing is great, because any story about Buck O'Neil or told by Buck O'Neil is enjoyable.  I really liked this:

Roland Hemond broke down in tears when he won the award. That's what the award should be about. That, I think, is what Buck O'Neil's life was about -- it was about not letting wonderful moments and wonderful people drift away unremembered.

Buck always wanted to tell people the story of Oscar Charleston. I heard him talk about Oscar Charleston dozens of times. He always said that while Willie Mays was the greatest Major League player he ever saw, Charleston was simply the greatest player he ever saw. He said Charleston could hit you 50 home runs, steal you 50 bases, run down every fly ball hit, and he had a bit of a mean streak too. He was going to beat you every way you could be beaten.

There were people who thought Buck told Oscar Charleston stories again and again to honor Oscar Charleston. But as I look back on Buck's life, I don't think that's quite right. Oscar Charleston was dead a long time by then. No, I think Buck told those stories to honor ... us. He thought WE should know about Oscar Charleston. He thought knowing that such a great baseball player once roamed the outfields of the world would make OUR lives a little bit richer, a little bit fuller, a little bit more colorful. That to me should be -- and I think is -- the spirit of the Buck O'Neil Award. I expect for the next few months people will share many Roland Hemond stories that most of us have never heard before. I expect Roland himself might share a few. And we'll all be richer for hearing them.