Buck Leonard
Yesterday the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (hello, Bucket List…) announced its Legacy Award Winners for the 2009 season. I like that they name each award for an appropriate Negro League star (Buck Leonard for the batting champion, ‘Cool Papa’ Bell for the stolen base king, etc.).
Interesting that none of the awards is named for Satchel Paige, and the MVP is named for Oscar Charleston rather than Josh Gibson. I think it’s good that someone like Rogan, who has kind of been lost in the shuffle, gets his due — would anyone pick him if you asked them to name the top five, or even top 10 Negro Leaguers, off the top of their head?
I’m also interested to hear feedback from Strat-o-Matic players who have used the new Negro League card set, produced through exhaustive and extensive research by Scott Simkus, who has worked on the project for over a decade. Looking at the rosters, there are many players I’m not familiar with. Here is an interesting interview with Simkus on WGN TV in Chicago on the project.