Free The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski Page B

Jack.
    I don’t care if I never get back.
     
    There were problems with Jack Norworth’s song. For instance, people who sang “I don’t care if I never get back” almost always walked out a few minutes later to beat traffic. The bigger problem involved Cracker Jack—most stadiums did not sell it. Minute Maid Ballpark did not sell it. And yet, somehow, Buck O’Neil ended up with a bag. A big bag. He munched away happily.
    “Where did you get that?” a woman a few seats down asked.
    “Someone gave it to me,” Buck said.
    “Are you sure you’re supposed to be eating Cracker Jacks?” she asked. There was never a shortage of women who wanted to mother Buck.
    “I can eat anything I want,” Buck said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
     
     
     
    B UCK TOOK MEMORY pills every single day, except for those days when he forgot. He did not know if the pills helped him remember, but when it came to memory he would not take chances. All summer, people asked him: “What’s the secret to long life?” He gave many answers, the most common being his standby: “Good black don’t crack.” But the more anyone was around Buck, the more obvious it was his memory kept him living.
    “If Buck ever started to forget, I don’t think he’d last long,” our constant companion, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum marketing director Bob Kendrick, would often say. “I think that’s the only thing that scares him. Dying doesn’t scare him. Forgetting does.”
    The opposite rang true too. Remembering thrilled him. You could see joy flush his face when he recalled a story or a detail he thought lost. An autograph seeker asked Buck if he remembered a ballplayer named Leon Wagner.
    “Daddy Wags, of course, of course,” Buck said. “He died just last year.”
    Daddy Wags was a baseball slugger in the 1960s. He was also an actor and a showman. For a while, Leon Wagner owned a clothing store in Los Angeles and its slogan was “Buy your rags at Daddy Wags.” Wagner also had a reputation as a man who enjoyed a drink in his time.
    “Yes, sir,” the autograph seeker said, “I grew up in Los Angeles. He was my favorite player. Did he play in the Negro Leagues?”
    “No, no, no, he came later than that,” Buck said. “He played at Tuskegee University—I saw him play there many times. Big man. Strong. Hey, listen, I just remembered a story.”
    That’s when Buck’s face lit up. The story was about a day game played in Los Angeles. This day game happened after a particularly rowdy night for Daddy Wags. He had a hangover, Buck said, that could stop a charging mule. Wags staggered around the dugout throughout the game while his teammates laughed. Daddy Wags liked the laughter. For some reason, Los Angeles Angels manager Bill Rigney thought it would be a good idea to send Daddy Wags into the game as a pinch hitter. Maybe he wanted to teach Wags a lesson. Maybe he simply did not appreciate Wags’s condition. Daddy Wags staggered to the plate. His breath beat him there by three or four steps.
    “Daddy,” the opposing catcher asked, “how you going to hit with that hangover?”
    “Don’t worry about that none,” Wags said. “One will get between me and my whiskey.”
    “And,” Buck said, “sure enough he hit a ball out of the stadium onto the street nearby. Wags said the toughest part of all was making it around the bases without falling down.”
     
     
     
    C LEMENS AND M ADDUX both pitched well. I asked Buck which pitcher was better. He seemed offended, as if I had asked him to pick his favorite child.
    “There is no better, man,” he says. “Those are two great pitchers. There is no better. That’s just sportswriter talk. They do it different ways. You’ve got one guy, Clemens, he’s all power. You got the other guy, Maddux, and he just knows how to pitch, throw a strike on the corner, throw another one on the corner, yeah, just knows how to pitch. What are you talking about better? They’re both great, outstanding,