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This was back in the spring of 1998, and I was in the middle of one of the great afternoons I’ve ever spent. There were two people inside the main hall of the Negro League Museum in Kansas City, Mo., that afternoon, two days before it would open to the general public. I was one, notebook in hand. And walking alongside me was John Jordan O’Neil Jr. — better known as Buck. And though his words, as always, filled that notebook front to back by the time he was done sharing his memories, it was the smile attached to his...

James "Red " Moore, a long-time first baseman in the Negro Leagues, passed away in Atlanta, Georgia on February 6, 2016. He was 99. Born November 18, 1916 in Atlanta, Moore developed his talents at Booker T. Washington High School. His exploits in the field and at the plate attracted the attention of the Chattanooga Choo Choos of the Negro Southern League in 1935. Word of his play at first base spread through the league and he was picked up by the famed Newark Eagles of the Negro National League in 1936. He joined an infield that earned the nickname...

Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, a power-hitting outfielder who starred for the New York Giants in the 1950s in a career abbreviated by major league baseball's exclusion of black players, has died. He was 96.

Emilio “Millito” Navarro boarded a jet in San Juan on Wednesday morning, three months before his 103rd birthday. He was bound for Orlando, Fla., bound for Major League Baseball’s amateur draft, bound for the New York Yankees, his favorite team. And Robinson Cano had better break out of that slump. “Now that I’ve been drafted,” Navarro said, “I’m ready right now to play second base. I might take his job.” In Memphis, somebody ought to fetch one of those low-hanging, welt-raising switches, because Joe B. Scott is fixing to be a ballplayer again. He’s 87. “I love baseball,” he said....

FRANK GRANT never got a chance to stretch his talent as a baseball player as far as it could go. The reason is so simple that it needs no finessing. He was black. His color kept him out. In a gesture that goes a long way toward making up for past slights, professional baseball is stretching its hand out to honor the forgotten black men of baseball. Grant, buried in Clifton, is one of them. He and others bounced around among all black teams but also played on teams that integrated decades before the Brooklyn Dodgers hired Jackie Robinson, baseball...

CHICAGO - Former Negro Leagues star Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, believed to be the oldest living professional baseball player, died Thursday. He was 103. Radcliffe, given his singular nickname by sports writer Damon Runyon after catching Satchel Paige in the first game of a doubleheader in the 1932 Negro League World Series and pitching a shutout in the second game, died from complications after a long bout with cancer, the Chicago White Sox said. Radcliffe was frequently in the crowd at U.S. Cellular Field and occasionally visited the White Sox clubhouse. He made it a tradition in recent years to...

<p>Howard Leroy "Toots" Ferrell was a living, breathing, laughing part of Negro League Baseball history, Delaware history and American history. And now he's gone.</p> <p>Delaware's last Negro Leaguer died at his home in Wilmington's Compton Apartments on Oct. 11. Ferrell, who was 73, took with him stories, told and untold, of the joys and tribulations of his three seasons in the Negro Leagues.</p>

I guess every player thinks about going into the Hall of Fame. Now that the moment has come for me, I find it difficult to say what is really in my heart. But I know it is the greatest thrill of my life. I received two hundred and eighty-odd votes from the writers. I know I didn't have two hundred and eighty-odd close friends among the writers. I know they voted for me because they felt in their minds, and some in their hearts, that I rated it, and I want to say to them: Thank you, from the bottom...

PHOENIX (AP) -- Joe Black's rendezvous with fame was nearly 50 years ago. By the time he lost his battle with cancer, he was remembered as much for his generous nature as for being the first black man to win a World Series game. ``He was a contemporary of Jackie Robinson, and he saw what he went through,'' Arizona Diamondbacks general manger Joe Garagiola Jr. said of Black, who died Friday in nearby Scottsdale. He was 78. ``He went through many things himself,'' Garagiola said. ``But this was a man with no bitterness or hate in his heart. He was...