world!”). He went back to the lunchroom and spoke for more cameras (“I always loved playing in Minnesota because here they would treat you like a man”). He went to an empty locker room where an eager young newspaper reporter felt thrilled to meet him.
R EPORTER: Do you ever have a bad day?
B UCK: What is that?
R EPORTER: Really. Do you ever have a bad day?
B UCK: No. There are no bad days.
R EPORTER: But you would have so much reason to be bitter….
B UCK: I stayed at some of the best hotels in the world. They just happened to be black hotels. I ate at some of the best restaurants in the world. They just happened to be black restaurants. In fact, those were better than most of the white restaurants because some of the best cooks in the world at that time were black.
R EPORTER: But I guess someone would say to you: How could you not hate?
B UCK: Where does hate get you?
Buck went back to the lunchroom just before the game began so he could eat a few finger sandwiches and celery sticks. The Minnesota Twins general manager, Terry Ryan, walked in with a box of Minnesota Twins golf balls for Buck.
“Hit them like you used to hit baseballs, Buck,” Ryan said.
“I wish I could,” Buck said.
By now, Buck had been going more or less nonstop for thirteen hours. He did not look tired. He gathered a plate of food and started to eat. A man sat down next to him.
“Buck O’Neil,” the man said.
Buck did not look up. He said: “That voice. Tony Oliva, my hero.”
F OR AN OLD baseball fan, the name Tony Oliva conjures up the mood and air of the mid-1960s the way hearing Mick Jagger sing “Hey! You! Get off of my cloud” might, or seeing Julie Andrews twirling in the Alps. There’s something magical in the name: Oliva. It wasn’t that Oliva was the best ballplayer of his time—though there were few better. The name sizzled with possibilities. Tony Oliva burst on the baseball scene in 1964 like no one had before. He won batting championships each of his first two seasons, the first baseball player to do that. Even that does not quite explain things. There was also something exotic about Oliva. He slipped out of Fidel Castro’s Cuba by using his brother’s passport. His name was not “Tony”—it was Pedro—but he kept his brother’s name for political reasons. Once he escaped Cuba, he could not return home to his family. He told reporters in his painstaking and much-practiced English that he called his mother every night.
“I tell my mother I will come home if I am needed,” he told the Sporting News . “But she tells me to stay here where I have an opportunity to play baseball.”
Pitchers did not know how to deal with him. Oliva had a savage swing—the bat often slipped from his hands and spun violently into the outfield or the stands. Nobody threw a bat farther than Tony Oliva. Though he swung viciously, he did not miss the ball much. He hit scalding line drives all over the park. Anybody who watched a young Oliva understood just how hard a baseball could be hit. Oliva in his young days could run and throw too. He was flawless, the perfect player, and he played with the desperation of a condemned man. No one can play the game that hard for very long. Oliva’s body broke down. He got the mumps, then chicken pox. He needed seven knee operations. He was a broken ballplayer by the time he was thirty-three. He played on, a decaying designated hitter in his later years, and he still cracked a few hits now and then. But he was not the same. He was not Oliva. There is something melancholy about those athletes who are so good so young.
“You still look young to me,” Buck O’Neil said. Oliva’s hair had receded and the top of his head shined. His sideburns had grayed and a few dark wrinkles creased under his eyes. But Buck was right. His face still looked young.
“You were as good a hitter as I ever saw, Tony,” Buck said.
“I got a few hits,” Oliva said.
“Let
R EPORTER: Do you ever have a bad day?
B UCK: What is that?
R EPORTER: Really. Do you ever have a bad day?
B UCK: No. There are no bad days.
R EPORTER: But you would have so much reason to be bitter….
B UCK: I stayed at some of the best hotels in the world. They just happened to be black hotels. I ate at some of the best restaurants in the world. They just happened to be black restaurants. In fact, those were better than most of the white restaurants because some of the best cooks in the world at that time were black.
R EPORTER: But I guess someone would say to you: How could you not hate?
B UCK: Where does hate get you?
Buck went back to the lunchroom just before the game began so he could eat a few finger sandwiches and celery sticks. The Minnesota Twins general manager, Terry Ryan, walked in with a box of Minnesota Twins golf balls for Buck.
“Hit them like you used to hit baseballs, Buck,” Ryan said.
“I wish I could,” Buck said.
By now, Buck had been going more or less nonstop for thirteen hours. He did not look tired. He gathered a plate of food and started to eat. A man sat down next to him.
“Buck O’Neil,” the man said.
Buck did not look up. He said: “That voice. Tony Oliva, my hero.”
F OR AN OLD baseball fan, the name Tony Oliva conjures up the mood and air of the mid-1960s the way hearing Mick Jagger sing “Hey! You! Get off of my cloud” might, or seeing Julie Andrews twirling in the Alps. There’s something magical in the name: Oliva. It wasn’t that Oliva was the best ballplayer of his time—though there were few better. The name sizzled with possibilities. Tony Oliva burst on the baseball scene in 1964 like no one had before. He won batting championships each of his first two seasons, the first baseball player to do that. Even that does not quite explain things. There was also something exotic about Oliva. He slipped out of Fidel Castro’s Cuba by using his brother’s passport. His name was not “Tony”—it was Pedro—but he kept his brother’s name for political reasons. Once he escaped Cuba, he could not return home to his family. He told reporters in his painstaking and much-practiced English that he called his mother every night.
“I tell my mother I will come home if I am needed,” he told the Sporting News . “But she tells me to stay here where I have an opportunity to play baseball.”
Pitchers did not know how to deal with him. Oliva had a savage swing—the bat often slipped from his hands and spun violently into the outfield or the stands. Nobody threw a bat farther than Tony Oliva. Though he swung viciously, he did not miss the ball much. He hit scalding line drives all over the park. Anybody who watched a young Oliva understood just how hard a baseball could be hit. Oliva in his young days could run and throw too. He was flawless, the perfect player, and he played with the desperation of a condemned man. No one can play the game that hard for very long. Oliva’s body broke down. He got the mumps, then chicken pox. He needed seven knee operations. He was a broken ballplayer by the time he was thirty-three. He played on, a decaying designated hitter in his later years, and he still cracked a few hits now and then. But he was not the same. He was not Oliva. There is something melancholy about those athletes who are so good so young.
“You still look young to me,” Buck O’Neil said. Oliva’s hair had receded and the top of his head shined. His sideburns had grayed and a few dark wrinkles creased under his eyes. But Buck was right. His face still looked young.
“You were as good a hitter as I ever saw, Tony,” Buck said.
“I got a few hits,” Oliva said.
“Let
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