Buck Leonard

Walter Fenner Leonard played 17 seasons for the Homestead Grays, batted .345 across his recorded career, won three Negro World Series titles, and played first base alongside Josh Gibson in a partnership that people compared to Ruth and Gehrig. Gibson was the "Black Babe Ruth." Leonard was the "Black Lou Gehrig." He accepted the comparison as an honor but wasn't convinced he deserved it. "I didn't think I ever measured up to it," he said. Monte Irvin offered the rebuttal: "Buck Leonard was the equal of any first baseman who ever lived. If he had gotten the chance to play in the Major Leagues, they might have called Lou Gehrig the white Buck Leonard."

Rocky Mount

Leonard was born on September 8, 1907, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. His father, John, was a railroad fireman who died during the 1919 influenza epidemic when Leonard was 11. His mother, Emma, raised six children alone. No high school was available for African Americans in Rocky Mount at the time, so Leonard left school after eighth grade at 14. He worked at a hosiery mill, shined shoes at the rail station, and installed brake cylinders on boxcars at the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad shop from the age of 16.

He lost his railroad job in 1932 during the Depression and turned to baseball. His younger brother Charlie, who also played in the Negro Leagues, had mispronounced "Buddy" as "Bucky" when they were children, and the name shortened to Buck.

The Homestead Grays

Leonard joined the Homestead Grays in 1934 after brief stints with the Portsmouth Black Revels, the Baltimore Stars, and the Brooklyn Royal Giants. At Baltimore, manager Ben Taylor, himself a great first baseman, had groomed Leonard as his replacement. Leonard stayed with the Grays for 17 seasons, the longest tenure with a single team in Negro League history.

The Grays won or finished first in the Negro National League nine times between 1937 and 1945 and a 10th in 1948. Leonard was the first baseman and team captain throughout. The lineup's core was Leonard batting cleanup behind Gibson in the three hole, a combination that drew direct comparison to the 1927 Yankees. Dave Barnhill, a Negro League pitcher, said of Leonard, "You could put a fastball in a shotgun and you couldn't shoot it by him." Leon Day said he would rather pitch against Gibson than Leonard.

Leonard appeared in five Negro World Series. In 1942, against the Kansas City Monarchs, the Grays were swept and Leonard played with a broken hand wrapped in tape. The Grays won the title in 1943 and 1944, both against the Birmingham Black Barons. Leonard batted .500 in the 1944 Series. They lost to the Cleveland Buckeyes in 1945 and won the title again in 1948 against the Black Barons, whose roster that year included a young Willie Mays. Leonard hit .395 during the 1948 regular season at 40 years old.

He was selected to the East-West All-Star Game 11 times between 1935 and 1948, a league record at the time. His All-Star batting line was .317 with three home runs.

The Color Line

Leonard was denied major league opportunities throughout his prime. In 1939, Pittsburgh Pirates president Bill Benswanger promised tryouts to Negro League players including Leonard. The tryouts never happened. In 1943, Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith met privately with Gibson and Leonard, asked if they wanted to play in the majors, and told them he believed they could make it. Both answered yes. They never heard back. "I think they believed we could play major league baseball," Leonard said later, "but everyone hated to be the first."

After Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, Bill Veeck offered Leonard a major league contract. Leonard declined. He believed he was too old and didn't want to embarrass himself or harm the broader cause of integration. "We always believed we could have made the major leagues if baseball hadn't been segregated," he said. "I'm not bitter. But it was too late for me."

He played three summers in the Mexican League from 1951 through 1953, batting .322, .335, and .332. In 1953, at 45, he hit .333 in 10 games for the Portsmouth Merrimacs of the Piedmont League, his only appearance in organized white baseball. He retired in 1955 at 48 after a knee injury while playing winter ball in Mexico.

Rocky Mount Again

Leonard returned permanently to Rocky Mount and built a life that had nothing to do with fame. He washed cars at an automobile garage. He served as a truant officer for the Rocky Mount school district for 10 years. He earned his high school diploma through correspondence at age 52, something he had regretted missing his entire life. He got a real estate brokerage license, founded a realty company, and built nine houses from the ground up.

He served as vice president of the Rocky Mount Leafs and then the Rocky Mount Phillies, minor league affiliates in the Carolina League, from 1962 through 1975. He became a civic figure, a civil rights advocate, and an ambassador for the Negro Leagues until his health declined.

At the Hall of Fame induction ceremony on August 7, 1972, he told the crowd, "We in the Negro Leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball too. We played with a round ball and with a round bat and wore baseball uniforms. We thought we should have and could have made the major leagues and all of us would have desired to play in the major leagues because we felt and knew that that was the greatest game." He paused and added, "I never dreamed about gaining the Hall of Fame because it was so far from us. It was the greatest moment of my life."

The Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1972 alongside Gibson, his longtime partner with the Grays. He was the third Negro Leaguer inducted, after Satchel Paige in 1971. In 2024, when MLB formally integrated Negro League statistics into its records, Leonard's career batting average of .345 and on-base percentage of .450 both ranked in baseball's all-time top 10.

He suffered a major stroke on April 4, 1986, but attended the 1994 All-Star Game in Pittsburgh as honorary captain of the National League team, wearing a replica Grays uniform. He died on November 27, 1997, in Rocky Mount, at 90, and was buried at Garden of Gethsemane Cemetery in the town where he was born, where he lost his father, where he returned after baseball, and where he stayed.