First Hall of Fame interview as memorable

I’m eager to cover the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction this weekend.

 

I haven’t done that in several years. It generally is a very good time, with everyone in a good mood.

 

The first induction I covered was in 1972, when I was a stringer – a part-timer - for the Observer-Dispatch. My first interview with a Hall of Famer was with Buck Leonard on the veranda of the Otesaga Hotel, overlooking Otsego Lake.

 

 Leonard was one of the first Negro League veterans to be inducted, and he had great stories to tell. For example, he told me some of the hotels the players had to stay in were so bad that they’d have to put newspapers on the beds and leave the lights on all night so the bed bugs wouldn’t come out.

 

It wasn’t all bad, though. Back in the 1930s, he said, he got 50 cents a day meal money.

 

“Fifty cents!” I said. “That’s terrible.”

 

“Oh, no,” he said. “For 50 cents you could get a big bowl of chili and a big schoop of beer. It was great.”

 

I can just imagine today’s players settling for that!

 

Buck’s condition for talking with me was 10 percent of whatever I was being paid.

 

“Buck, I’m getting $6.50 for this story,” I said, which was the truth. It was the going rate for a story at the time. That meant he would get 65 cents – way less than the price of a bowl of chili and a schoop of beer by that time – but he still wanted me to send it to him down in Rocky Mount, N.C.

 

Buck died at the age of 90 in 1997. I still owe him the 65 cents.