Buck O'Neil
On July 30, 2006, at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, 94-year-old John "Buck" O'Neil stood at the podium to honor 17 Negro Leagues figures being enshrined — all of them dead — even though he himself had missed election by a single committee vote months earlier. He spoke for them with grace ("representing the people who helped build a bridge across the chasm of prejudice") and led the crowd in song rather than dwell on his own snub. O'Neil, born in segregated Florida in 1911, had been barred from the white major leagues by the color line and built a great career instead as a player and manager for the Kansas City Monarchs, later becoming the first Black coach in MLB history with the 1962 Cubs and the beloved living voice of the Negro Leagues. He died that October at 94, never inducted in his lifetime. In 2022, a Hall of Fame committee finally elected him — posthumously.