A Long, Hard Day

The day began with an early phone call from my wife. Friday is sleep day. Theoretically. Today was that "once in a while I actually get the day off" day. So I was somewhere south of thrilled when her cell phone number popped up on the caller ID. She knows better! What she actually knew was that First Church was burning.
I was privileged to teach the John R. Pepper Sunday School Class of First United Methodist Church in Memphis, TN, one Sunday a month for three or four years in the mid-1990's. I was on the Wesley Senior Ministries staff, and had no Sunday morning responsibilities. The Pepper Class was the great Sunday School class of the oldest church of any sort in Memphis. While spending that time with the Pepper Class, I fell in love with First Church. It has, ever since, been the only church in our Annual Conference (it's a Methodist thing) that I have specifically wanted to serve someday. It isn't our biggest church. It isn't our richest. But it just may be our most historic, and it's the only one we have in downtown Memphis.
I'm not just a Memphian; I am a downtowner. There is a sense, a spirit, to downtown Memphis. It has a lot to do with music-the intersection of delta blues, Elvis' rock, Rev. Al's heart-lusting on Saturday night and praying about it on Sunday morning, Sam and Dave's and Cropper and Dunn's Stax of soul and so much more; it's also part having had to deal with our racism while on international display since the hard days of April, 1968; it is the residue of an old style political boss-the inimitable Mr. Crump about whom WC Handy put pen to paper-who wouldn't abide any consideration of successors, which in some ways limits us to this day; it's about The River, just down the cobblestones from our high bluff; it's about being Southern and defeated and Southern and triumphant; and it's about a million other things that make little sense to us, and less to anyone who ain't from around here.
I'm a couple of high school kids and one other obligation away from living downtown. I hate our current neighborlesshood with a passion that makes purple seem calm. I despise notions of entitlement and that mentality that blames all problems on any "them" as though life is ever anything but "us" on this little journey. I live in a buttoned-down, gated-up, uptight, repellant suburb, which is a dirtier word than any of those George Carlin said couldn't get on TV. (He never saw the Sopranos before writing that bit. Ah, Freedom!) I want to live downtown. I have dreamed of working there. I still do.
First Church's sanctuary is a shell today. The outer walls stand; there's nothing else of that grand structure left. God bless my colleague, Rev. Martha Wagley. Her job got a lot bigger and tougher today. How fortunate we downtowners are to have her there at this time. Martha will love downtown through this challenge.
Tonight a tough day got much worse. Buck O'Neill died. Earlier this year, the morons on Fay Vincent's committee, named to correct the blindness of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum when it comes to Negro Leagues players and executives, failed to make the most obvious call, and name Buck O'Neill for induction. They found 17 people deserving of induction, and I agree with all of them. But there had to be room for one more. John Jordan "Buck" O'Neill should have gone in for his contributions to the game. They said he wasn't quite player enough to warrant induction. How many home runs did Lee MacPhail hit? How many bases did Larry MacPhail steal? The only thing Ford Frick affected on the field was disrespecting Roger Maris with that damnable asterisk. He, and a lot of others, weren't players at all. But some supposed contributions to the game got them in. Buck O'Neill did more for the game than pretty much the whole lot of them. He was the first African-American coach in the major leagues. He was the face and presence of the Negro Leagues for the last generation, through his work at the Museum in Kansas City. He was a presence of grace and reconciliation whenever the question of justice for black players was raised. Buck was often asked, "Don't you wish you had come along a little later?" He answered, again, with the title of his wonderful autobiography: "I Was Right On Time."
I was blessed to meet Buck O'Neill at a University of Memphis symposium on Negro Leagues baseball in the late 1990's. The smile that illuminated Ken Burns' "Baseball" was genuine and ready. The grace that enabled him to walk, beaming, onto the stage at Cooperstown last Summer to introduce the inductions of those who should have been his classmates was evident those years ago, as he took time with, and showed genuine interest in, every single person who passed by his table. How marvelous it is to meet a celebrated person who equals their reputation. Mr. O'Neill far surpassed his.
Time ran out for Buck on Friday night. He was 94 years old, and succumbed to pneumonia. Der Kommisar for Life now says that he will do everything in his power to see Buck O'Neill elected to the Hall of Fame. As usual, Bud, you're too late. Shame on Baseball. Shame on Baseball. Shame on Baseball.
Tomorrow has to be a better day.