INTERVIEW

“What’s Not to Love About this Story?”

When Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM), joyfully asks that question, he’s talking about the history of the Negro Leagues. It could just as easily apply to his own story. For 30 years, the NLBM has been sharing this inspiring tale. This year is special. One hundred years ago, on February 13, 1920, Rube Foster founded the league at the Paseo YMCA, just a few blocks from the current location of the museum. It’s the perfect time to round the bases with the effervescent Mr. Kendrick.

How did a young man from little Crawfordville, Georgia, find himself here?

“It’s still amazing to me that I wound up in the Midwest. I was prepared to go to Howard University; then, in the thirteenth hour, Park College came out of nowhere and said, ‘Hey we got a little money if you can come out here to play basketball.’

Photo by Anna Petrow

I didn’t really know where Parkville was but I left home and haven’t looked back since.”

You’re the youngest of six boys?

“By the time I came along, Mom and Dad were just tired! I was so lucky to have them. Neither one had more than a 10thgrade education, which was as far as each could go in those days, but each of them instilled values I still call on today.”

You are a person of enormous presence. Does it ever bother you, ego-wise, to be asked every day, everywhere about the great John “Buck” O’Neil?

“I was never afraid to walk in Buck O’Neil’s shadow. You cannot fill his enormous shoes. It would not be humanly possible. To have the opportunity to pick up the baton and try to carry out the great work that he had so dedicated himself to the last 16 years of his life is awesome. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about Buck. Cast that shadow!”

You were as close to him as anyone could be. For most of us, Buck was always happy, always up! Ever see any sadness or despair?

“Only time I saw him somewhat sullen was talking about his experiences in the service. He was a proud Navy man. When he got back, he realized that the POWS were treated better than they were. POWS were in the front of the bus and they were relegated to the back. There’s nothing more patriotic you can do than serve, and yet they were still treated like second-class citizens. That kind of left a little mark on him.”

As you like to say, you were bitten by the Buck Bug?

“Absolutely! The best gift Buck gave me, that he never realized that he gave me, was in 1999. The Royals are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Henry Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s homerun record,