We used to watch the entire run of Baseball monthly in college, basically watching as many in a row without before passing out from Labatt's Extra Stock. Because, or in spite, of this, I think O'Neill's "Damn. There's got to be something better than this," whenever things go sour.
No question Buck O'Neal is a baseball icon. I read the article this morning and the only thing I would disagree with Buck about was his read on Ty Cobb. Cobb was, without a doubt a great baseball player, but he was truly an asshole son of a bitch, mean, nasty individual. Red Adair and my grandfather use to say he was the biggest sob on the planet. He didn't give a shit about his teammates and everything centered around himself. We all have read the things written about him over the last 50 years and I am sure that there was another side to him. There was a book written about him from interviews and the author was with him for a extended amount of time that tried to show what the man was really about. I didn't get to see him until the end of his career but all my fathers and grandfathers' friends always said that but for him being a truly great player most of the people around him didn't want to have much to do with him. Buck's take on Gibson and the others was right on. I got to see Gibson and Paige , Foster and others whose names I can't recall but the barn storming that they did with some of the major leaguers had some of the best baseball games ever played. Just sitting in the stands now would bring chills to me. And not to beat a dead horse here, those era players only used beer, cigars and hotdogs..... How many knew who Rube Foster was until Buck talked about him in the article?
Every ball player, in the minors or majors, should be requred to read this, especially the portion dealing with rules. Hell, that should apply to all professional athletes..they would learn that the old timers didn't need steroids or other supplements to juice up their bodies. They just used their talents and the bodies that God gave them. They weren't all goody two shoes; there were hell raisers, but the game had honor and they abided by that. And yes, I know about the Black Sox and it's repercussions, so don't rag me about that.
There was a book written about him from interviews and the author was with him for a extended amount of time that tried to show what the man was really about. I remember that (not like I was there). They actually made a movie about that called "Cobb" in 1994 with Tommy Lee Jones playing Ty Cobb and Robert Wuhl playing Al Stump, the man who wrote the biography of Ty Cobb. It wasn't a major hit but it was a pretty good movie.
How many knew who Rube Foster was until Buck talked about him in the article? To be honest, if it wasn't for that article, I would have never known who Rube Foster was. I've seen movies portraying the Negro League like "Soul of the Game" but that mainly was about Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson. There was no mention made about Rube Foster.
Jazzdog, Shoeless Joe Jackson was found innocent of all the charges but still was kept from playing baseball by the biggest idiot of all time Judge Landis who single-handlely almost ruin baseball with his actions and rules, regulations dos and don'ts and whatever. Ruth told Landis to kiss off a number of times but by that time Ruth was baseball.
