As I read The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski, I realize it’s not really a book about baseball. It’s a book about aging.

Posnanski had the special opportunity to spend time with Buck O’Neil, a special man and an important figure from history. But the significant thing about the book is that O’Neil was 94 years old at the time Posnanski followed him around recording his experiences and recollections.

I hate the thought that my life is well past its halfway point (and that’s assuming I’m lucky enough to achieve a normal life-expectancy). I’m not young or fit or sexy, or even particularly vibrant. I can see the effects of time on my grown kids, my wife, my friends, and particularly on my parents. And the worst part is the admission that you’re not going to become all the things you want to become, or do all the things you want to do.

Sports fans experience a unique kind of sadness that comes with the passage of time. In the course of just 15 or 20 years your favorite professional athletes go from rookies to retirement. When your favorite player finally admits “I can’t do it anymore,” you are forced to face how much you have changed while their careers played out. You realize you won’t get the enjoyment of watching them perform anymore. And you’ll have to watch them develop pot bellies and bald heads and walk with limps.

Buck O’Neil spent his retirement years trying to educate us about the youth of such men – athletes who had long since developed pot bellies and bald heads and limps. Worse yet, most of them were dead. Without many photographs and almost no video footage to tell the story, O’Neil had only his memories to share. Until time finally caught up with him, O’Neil did all he could. Baseball fans are all in his debt.

If you haven’t invested time learning about the Negro Leagues and the great men who played baseball in the shadows of segregation, join in the community read of The Soul of Baseball sponsored by the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. Pick up a copy and look for events to discuss the book together. If you don’t live in Topeka, write any comments about O’Neil and the book you would like in this blog.