"There was a youngster who was playing with us, and he was a bright fellow and very inquisitive. Whenever I came down to breakfast, he would have the paper and would give it to me and say, “Tell me what happened in the majors,” and I would. He would then get in the back of the bus and tell all the other players what happened in the major leagues with the paper in front of him. One day I saw him reading the paper bottom side up and I said to myself, “This kid can’t read.”
I asked him about it and he said he wished he could. He was from the south, in cotton country, and during planting, chopping, and picking time, the school was closed so he had only three months out of the year to go to school. I got a primer and with Hilton Smith, who is in the Hall of Fame now, we taught him the alphabet. I would have him at night and Hilton would have him in the day, and when the baseball season was over he would go to school at night. He finally got his GED. "
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Buck O’Neil played baseball in the Negro Baseball Leagues during the 1930s and 40s. Integration started when Buck was 34 years of age and past his prime as a player, so he never got a chance to play in the white professional league.
Buck O’Neil Autobiography: I Was Right On Time
