I had indicated earlier that I was going to shift the primary focus of this blog away from baseball; but I could not pass up the opportunity to celebrate the lives of two baseball's finest, who recently left us. I regret that I have been saddled with work obligations and thus was unable to comment upon the passing of Buck O'Neill in a timely manner, as he was undoubtedly a prominent figure in Negro League baseball and a pivotal one in the integration of Major League Baseball. In addition, he was reportedly one of the classiest men who ever played the game, a man who harbored no bitterness even though he had every right to do so, and a favorite interview subject of sportswriters. He will be sorely missed, but he had a long and fruitful life. Well done, sir.
And just today, I heard of the untimely passing of Joe Niekro, a man who, while not as great a player or prominent a figure as Buck O'Neill (not to mention his brother Phil), was a colorful character with a long and distinguished career. One of my favorite Joe Niekro stories involves a Ball-doctoring incident that occurred during his final season with the Astros (yeah, I know cheating normally isn't funny, but this was; and besides, ball-doctoring is far from the worst transgression that baseball players regularly commit: steroids, anyone?). Anyway, I don't recall who the Astros were playing, or who the umpires were, but the opposing manager accused Niekro of having an emery board in his possession, which he was allegedly using to scuff baseballs. When the entire umpiring crew went to the mound to confront him, Niekro decided to try an old schoolboy trick on them. Palming the emery board in his right hand, in one deft motion he dropped it to the ground at hip level while raising his hands in the air, palms outward, to show that he had nothing in them. The funny thing is, in a stadium full of people and with four umpires looking directly at him, it almost worked. Three of the four umpires looked up at his hands; but a fourth looked down, and seeing the emery board lying on the mound at Niekro's feet, picked it up and summarily gave Joe the heave-ho. It still ranks as one of the funniest damn things that I have ever seen in my thirty-plus years of following Major League Baseball.
