Bob Kendrick on Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Willie Mays and the Negro League on MLB The Show

In The Front Row with Mike Vaccaro

Bob Kendrick grew up in the small town of Crawfordville, Georgia. In 1980, he accepted a basketball scholarship to play at Park College in Parkville, Missouri making his way to the Midwest for the first time. Following a 10-year newspaper career, Kendrick began his tenure with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO in 1998 and was named President in 2011. Since then, Kendrick has had many roles and responsibilities including historian and fundraiser. In this episode, Kendrick tells us about the founding of the Museum in 1990 with the help of former Negro Leagues player Buck O’Neil and shares what made O’Neil a special person. He also recounts the names and stories from the Negro Leagues including Oscar Charleston, Willie Mays, Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and others. Kendrick gives his thoughts on the treatment endured by black players of the past and the lack of black players playing baseball today. Plus, he tells us about the growing respect for the Negro Leagues with stats added to MLB records and the focus of the leagues in the recent MLB game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Kendrick also tells us how the inclusion of Negro League players in a video game has done more to promote the Negro Leagues than anything else.