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| The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America | 
 enlarge | Author: Joe Posnanski
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $5.49
You Save: $19.46 (78%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 15194
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3570973
ASIN: B00164CNCM
Publication Date: February 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
When Legendary Negro League player Buck O'Neil asked sports columnist Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, Posnanski had to think about it. From that question was born the idea behind BASEBALL AND JAZZ. Posnanski and the 94 year old O'Neil decided to spend the 2005 baseball season touring the country in hopes of stirring up the love that first drew them to the game. This book is just as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. In a time when disillusioned, steroid–shooting, money hungry athletes define the sport, Buck O'Neil stands out as a man that truly played for the love of the game. Posnanski writes about that love and the one thing that O'Neil loved almost as much as baseball: jazz. BASEBALL AND JAZZ is an endearing step back in time to the days when the crack of a bat and the smoky notes of a midnight jam session were the sounds that brought the most joy to a man's heart.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
The Soul Of Living March 8, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
Is The Soul of Baseball a book about baseball? No.
Is The Soul of Baseball a biography of Buck O'Neil? No.
The Soul of Baseball is about life, the joys of living. Those little things we may do during the day that puts a smile on someone's face, that makes someone stop and - however briefly - put living back into its proper perspective.
Yes, Buck O'Neil brought joy through talking about baseball - Negro Leagues Baseball - and through his recollections from a blessed life. But, more importantly, he held a mirror up to us and made the simple request to look for our heart & soul, and then share that warmth with as many people as possible.
Author Joe Posnanski spent more than a year on the road with Buck O'Neil, chronicling the more than 200 events he attended nationwide at the ages of 93 and 94; from the largest to smallest ballparks, schools & media junkets and even to Washington, D.C. to give testimony before a Senate committee on why the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum deserved national designation.
There was poetry to many statements from Buck O'Neil, which Posnanski makes special for the reader. His recollections on a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, baseball camp run by a friend, Willie Spooner, says it best:
Nothing better
Than baseball. For kids.
Teach them all the lessons.
How to be a teammate.
How to be a man.
Nobody does it for you.
Gotta stand up.
I remember Willie
Used to tell those kids in Baton Rouge
It's better to steal second
Than to steal an apple.
You will laugh and cry and won't want the book to end. But books, like life, must have a final page.
Buck O'Neil passed away on October 6, 2006, at the age of 94. Share a smile with someone today and Buck O'Neil really isn't that far away. He still has that mirror in his hand, but this time he doesn't need any words; loving life needs no explanation.
Inspirational! March 10, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
As someone who makes their living writing about baseball, Joe Posnanski is an inspiration. This is his first full-length book and he doesn't disappoint. He's made the story and humanity of Buck O'Neill something precious and poignant. He captured the side of Buck that we didn't often get to see. He was more than a symbol or a legend, he was a man. By capturing that spirit, we all get to hold onto the gift that O'Neill left for us - a joy for life, for a game, and for friendship. If Posnanski inspires me to write, O'Neill's story inspires me to live. If there's a better combination out there, I haven't found it.
- Will Carroll, Baseball Prospectus
 Great Gift From Son To Father July 2, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
My son, Jeremy, always gives me good books. He doesn't just pick up the latest best-seller, but takes the time to choose something special just for me. He hit a home run with The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski. It's the story of an extended road trip Posnanski took with legendary Negro League player and manager Buck O'Neil. The lessons learned along the way are great ones for sons and fathers to share.
Posnanski, an award-winning sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, chose not to write a biography of the irrepressible O'Neil, even though the story could bear to be told over and over again. Instead, he penned a moving memoir of the year he spent with the then-93-year-old O'Neil as he toured the country promoting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City and the memory of those men who played the game in the days before whites and blacks could share the field. The trip takes them everywhere from Nicodemus, Kansas, to New York, New York, and O'Neil has a fascinating story to tell at every stop.
He talks about Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, and Josh Gibson, names that will always be enshrined in baseball's collective memory. But he also tells the tales of forgotten men like Dan Bankhead, the first black pitcher in the major leagues, who would have been a great hurler if he hadn't been afraid to pitch fastballs inside against white batters.
The key theme of the book is Buck O'Neil's spirit-lifting embrace of the best in every person he met. Despite years of back-breaking struggle, O'Neil never turned bitter, never condemned anyone for their prejudice, never had a bad word to say about the often ugly conditions the black ball players endured. Even when he failed to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Buck O'Neil refused to be angry about it. To make up for the egregious mistake, the Hall awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award after his death.
The lessons Posnanski drew from his experiences with O'Neil are well worth telling and the book he created from them is well worth reading.
Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo
A Hurricane of Love. A Book You can't Put Down. March 12, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
"The Soul of Baseball" is the most entertaining and engaging book on sports I've read, since I discovered W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe Jackson" (which would later become "Field of Dreams") in 7th grade, 20 years ago.
The great sportswriters can interpret the events from the field and the locker room, and craft them into stories that Joe & Jill Everyman can relate to. Nobody in the country is better at this than Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star scribe, and two-time AP Sports Columnist of the Year.
With "The Soul of Baseball," Posnanski unveils the amazing id, ego, and super-ego of Buck O'Neil, a baseball icon and civil rights pioneer, on par with Jackie Robinson and Branch Ricky. O'Neil is more than a charismatic man, who tells great stories; he is a force of nature, a hurricane of love, affecting anyone who crosses in his path.
Posnanski follows the former player, coach, and scout as O'Neil educates the world about Negro League baseball. At 93-years-old, O'Neil's adventures in a 21st century America bring him into contact with cynical New York shock jocks, Negro League pretenders, and the occasional woman in a red dress. He embraces each one with the same amount of love and joie de vivre.
"The Soul of Baseball" is a great book for baseball fans, fathers and sons, and anyone who interested in one of the most remarkable individuals to live in the past century.
You'll want to re-read "The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America" again and again, and gift it to as many friends and family members as possible.
Wonderful book about both baseball and keys to living a meaningful life. March 6, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have been reading Posnanski for years and have read every word he has written about Buck. Thus, I really didn't expect to learn anything new in this book. I was wrong. It is fresh material and as is always the case with Posnanski, incredibly well written. I felt like I was along for the ride as Joe traveled the nation with O'Neil toward the end of this amazing man's life. The book really gets to O'Neil's soul and makes us all pause to think about what is truly important in life. Incredible read for anyone. Lots of great baseball stories, but so much more.
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