Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America » (Reprint)

A senior writer at Sports Illustrated, Joe Posnanski has twice been named the Best Sports Columnist in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors for his work at the Kansas City Star. He is the author of The Good Stuff and The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America, which won the prestigious Casey Award for best baseball book of 2007. His work has also been anthologized in Best American Sports Writing, and he lives with his family in Kansas City, Missouri.

When legendary Negro League player Buck O'Neil asked Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, the renowned sports columnist was inspired by the question. He decided to spend the 2005 baseball season touring the country with the ninety-four-year-old O'Neil in hopes of rediscovering the love that first drew them to the game.

The Soul of Baseball is as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. Driven by a relentless optimism and his two great passions—for America's pastime and for jazz, America's music—O'Neil played solely for love. In an era when greedy, steroid-enhanced athletes have come to characterize professional ball, Posnanski offers a salve for the damaged spirit: the uplifting life lessons of a truly extraordinary man who never missed an opportunity to enjoy and love life.

Publishers Weekly

Posnanski, sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, spent a year on the road with the iconic Negro Leagues player and manager Buck O'Neil (1911-2006), recording the magnanimous 94-year-old's encounters with scores of fans and his vast repertoire of entertaining stories. O'Neil, the first African-American to coach in the Major Leagues, was a tireless spokesman for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Posnanski is at his best when recounting O'Neil's baseball memories of the likes of legends Satchel Paige, Willie Mays and Josh Gibson. The author captures O'Neil's rhythmic voice and often relays it in italicized verse, while painting an uplifting portrait of a man who was without bitterness despite long experience with racial discrimination. Too often, however, Posnanski bogs down in mundane details that read like a travelogue of airports and tardy drivers. Many of the chapters have the feel of lengthy newspaper articles stitched together, lacking segues and narrative. Nevertheless, the final scenes are moving tales of the funeral of 103-year-old Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and O'Neil's dignity when he was infamously passed over by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Warming Up a Riff     1
Buck O'Neil's America     8
Winter
They Can't Take That Away from Me     27
Nicodemus     35
Spring
I Like to Recognize the Tune     55
A Ballgame in Houston     62
It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)     82
Buck O'Neil Day     89
Summer
Blue Skies     107
New York, New York     115
These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)     128
Fathers and Sons     135
Summertime     154
Gary, Indiana     161
I'd Rather Have a Memory Than a Dream     175
Classrooms in Atlanta     185
Isn't This a Lovely Day?     201
Autumn
I Got a Right to Sing the Blues     215
A Funeral in Chicago     226
Washington     240
Winter (Take 2)
Home     255
Afterword     271
Afterword to the Paperback Edition     275
Acknowledgments     281