PHILADELPHIA — Ryan Howard was a rookie with the Philadelphia Phillies just putting baseball on notice with his moonshot home runs when he met Buck O’Neil, a champion of Black ballplayers during a monumental, eight-decade career on and off the field.
Howard was introduced to O’Neil as a modern-day Josh Gibson, one of the Negro Leagues’ greatest players, who hit .466 for the 1943 Homestead Grays. Howard, who hit at least 45 homers four times in his career, was too embarrassed to accept the comparison.
“Mr. O’Neil was like, ‘Do you got that power?’ I said, ‘Yes sir, I do,'” Howard said. “He told me: ‘Don’t be ashamed of it. Let it out.’ It was great, just hearing the stories from and just being in his presence.”
O’Neil, who died in 2006, was long a champion of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Howard, who won an NL MVP and a World Series with the Phillies, is ready to take up O’Neil’s cause as the former slugger joined the push in helping the museum’s expansion project.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is fundraising for a new 30,000-square-foot facility and campus, aimed at advancing the museum’s mission of preserving the rich history of Negro Leagues baseball and its impact on social progress in the United States.
Howard and San Diego Padres manager Mike Shildt announced their plans Thursday to join the Negro Leagues’ “Pitch for the Future” in bringing greater awareness to the legacy of the Negro Leagues with a museum expansion.
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick said he hoped to raise $30 million to complete the project.
“It’s a tremendous indicator of the growth of his museum and the heightened interest in the subject matter that we’ve generated through the years and has dictated a need for us to grow in all phases of our operations,” Kendrick said. “This is a byproduct of growth.”
Interest in the Negro Leagues has spiked of late in large part because of its inclusion in the video game MLB The Show and when records for more than 2,300 players were incorporated last year into Major League Baseball statistics. The museum that was founded in a tiny, one-room office space in 1990 that attracts about 70,000 visitors each year – plus major leaguers who stop by during road trips – has outgrown its space at 18th and Vine.
Kendrick said the current space “wasn’t designed to handle large crowds at any one time.”
“In a perfect world, Kansas City will host the World Cup next year,” Kendrick said, “and we would love to follow the energy and excitement of the World Cup with a grand opening of the Negro Leagues Museum in 2027. That might be a little bit ambitious, but it’s doable.”
Howard toured the museum long before he was one of the feared sluggers in the National League.
“It was my way of paying homage to the Negro Leagues and former Negro League players that didn’t get the opportunity to play in the big leagues,” Howard said.
Howard was always struck by the Field of Legends — 13 life-size statues of the first Negro Leaguers inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York — that deepened his understanding of the journey the players took to reach the Hall.
“I think that’s why it’s important to keep the story going, keep it alive,” Howard said. “You’ve got to understand the history of Black baseball and how it correlates with baseball, in general, and Major League Baseball.”
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport found during its last published study that Black players represented just 6.2% of players on MLB opening day rosters in 2023, down from 7.2% in 2022. For the first time since 1950, shortly after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color barrier, there were no U.S.-born Black players on the Houston Astros’ or Philadelphia Phillies’ roster in the 2022 World Series.
Former New York Mets slugger Darryl Strawberry said over the weekend that MLB needed to focus on developing and marketing the game within cities in order for the percentage of Black players to rise substantially.
Howard said connecting Black youth with baseball has long had its issues.
“It’s tough, trying to help figure things out,” Howard said. “I think there are now more young Black kids starting to get back into baseball. You have to be able to turn on the TV and see somebody that looks like you.”
Howard was raised in Missouri and noted Black former St. Louis Cardinals stars such as Willie McGee, Vince Coleman and Terry Pendleton who helped ignite his interest in the sport. Howard and fellow NL MVP Jimmy Rollins were two Black stars and fan favorites with the Phillies when they won their last World Series in 2008.
Shildt was a frequent visitor of the museum when he managed the Cardinals and remained hopeful that expansion would provide the resources needed to educate a new generation of fans.
“There’s a bigger story to tell,” Shildt said. “What’s taken place has been more grassroots oriented. They’ve been able to put it together without the resources to tell the full, big-picture story.”
