Buck Leonard
Leonard in 1947
First baseman
Born:(1907-09-08)September 8, 1907 Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S.
Died: November 27, 1997(1997-11-27) (aged 90) Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S.
Batted: Left Threw: Left
Negro leagues debut
1933, for the Brooklyn Royal Giants
Last Negro leagues appearance
1950, for the Homestead Grays
Negro leagues[a] statistics
Batting average	.346
Hits	748
Home runs	97
Runs batted in	548
Stolen bases	32
Teams
Brooklyn Royal Giants (1933) Homestead Grays (1934–1950)
Career highlights and awards
11×All-Star (1935, 1937–1941, 1943–1946, 1948²) 3×Negro World Series champion (1943, 1944, 1948) 2×Negro National League batting champion (1935, 1938) Washington Nationals Ring of Honor Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1972
Election method	Negro Leagues Committee

Walter Fenner "Buck"Leonard (September 8, 1907 – November 27, 1997) was an Americanfirst baseman inNegro league baseball and in theMexican League. After growing up in North Carolina, he played for theHomestead Grays between 1934 and 1950, batting fourth behindJosh Gibson for many years. The Grays teams of the 1930s and 1940s were considered some of the best teams in Negro league history. Leonard and Gibson are two of only nine players in league history to win multiple batting titles.

Leonard never played inMajor League Baseball (MLB); he declined a 1952 offer of an MLB contract because he felt he was too old. Late in life, Leonard worked as a physical education instructor and was the vice-president of aminor league baseball team. He and Gibson were elected to theBaseball Hall of Fame in1972. In 1999, he was ranked number 47 on the 100 Greatest Baseball Players list byThe Sporting News.

Born inRocky Mount, North Carolina,^[2] Leonard was the brother of fellow Negro leaguerCharlie Leonard.^[3] His father worked as a railroad fireman while his mother was a homemaker who cared for the six Leonard children. Leonard's parents called him "Buddy", but his younger brother began mispronouncing it "Bucky". Family members began calling him "Buck", a name which stuck with him throughout his life.^[4] When Leonard was about seven years old, he would sneak over to the baseball field of the local white team and watch games through the fence. Local police even once arrested Leonard and his friends when they were caught peeking through the fence at the segregated field.^[5]

Leonard's father died when he was eleven and Leonard picked up jobs after school to help his family. There was no black high school in Rocky Mount, so Leonard finished the eighth grade and went to work shining shoes for a rail station.^[6] He also worked in a hosiery mill and for theAtlantic Coast Line Railroad. He later earned aGED by correspondence. He began playing semiprofessional baseball while working for the railroad, then decided to pursue his living with the sport.^[7]

He began his Negro league career in 1933 with theBrooklyn Royal Giants, then moved to the legendaryHomestead Grays in 1934, the team he played for until his retirement in 1950. The Grays of the late 1930s through the mid-1940s are considered one of the greatest teams of any race ever assembled. The team won nine league pennants in a row during that time.^[8]

Leonard batted fourth in their lineup behind Josh Gibson. He led the Negro leagues inbatting average in 1948 with a mark of .395, and usually either led the league inhome runs or finished second in homers to teammate Gibson. Since Gibson was known as the "BlackBabe Ruth" and Leonard was a first baseman, Buck Leonard was inevitably called the "BlackLou Gehrig." Together, the pair was colloquially known as the "Thunder Twins" or "Dynamite Twins".^[9] In fact, Negro league starMonte Irvin said that if Leonard had been allowed in the major leagues, baseball fans "might have called Lou Gehrig the white Buck Leonard. He was that good."^[8] The Grays disbanded after 1950.^[10]

Beginning in 1951, Leonard went to theMexican League. Teams played three games per week in this league, a pace that worked well for the aging player.^[11] Leonard said that he got sick from the water every year that he returned to Mexico, but he otherwise enjoyed the league. For much of his time in Mexico, he was managed by Cuban baseball starMartín Dihigo. Leonard was impressed by Dihigo's baseball knowledge. In 1952, Leonard was offered a major league contract, but he believed that at age 45 he was too old and might embarrass himself and hurt the cause of integration. He stayed in Mexico through 1955, playing for teams inTorreón,Xalapa,Durango andObregón.^[12]

In 1953, Leonard made his only appearances in "organized" ball, playing for the unaffiliatedPortsmouth Merrimacs of the class BPiedmont League, hitting .333 in 10 games and 46 at bats.^[13]

After retiring as a player, Leonard worked as a truant officer, served as a physical education instructor and started a realty company. From 1962 to 1972, he was vice president of theRocky Mount Leafs and then, from 1973 to 1975, of theRocky Mount Phillies.^[7] The Leafs were a Class ACarolina League farm team for theDetroit Tigers from 1965 to 1972. In 1962 and 1963. the Leafs were a farm club of theCincinnati Reds and in 1964, the Leafs were a farm club of theWashington Senators. The Phillies were a farm team for thePhiladelphia Phillies.^[14]

Leonard was elected to theBaseball Hall of Fame in1972 along with Gibson. At his induction ceremony on August 7 of that year, Leonard said, "We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball shoes and wore baseball uniforms and we thought we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game and we liked to play it. If we didn't, we wouldn't have played because there wasn't any money in it."^[10]

Leonard was also inducted into theNorth Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1974.^[7] He suffered a stroke in the 1980s.^[7] In1994, theMajor League Baseball All-Star Game was held in Pittsburgh, hometown of the Grays, and the 88-year-old Leonard was named an honorary captain. He appeared wearing a replica of a Grays uniform. Shortly before his death in 1997, Leonard was the subject of aNorth Carolina General Assembly proclamation recognizing his contributions to baseball. His death late that year stemmed from complications of his earlier stroke.^[7]

In1999, he ranked Number 47 onThe Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, one of five players so honored who played all or most of their careers in the Negro leagues, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Leonard's contemporaries, including catcherRoy Campanella and pitcherDave Barnhill, cited his quick bat as one of his greatest strengths. "You could put a fastball in a shotgun and you couldn't shoot it by him," Barnhill said.^[8] Negro league pitcherLeon Day said that he would have rather pitched against Gibson than Leonard.^[8] Grays ownerCumberland Posey described Leonard as one of the most talentedclutch hitters in the Negro leagues.^[8]

He was named to theWashington Nationals Ring of Honor for his "significant contribution to the game of baseball in Washington, D.C." as part of theHomestead Grays on August 10, 2010.

The first official statistics for the Negro leagues were compiled as part of a statistical study sponsored by theNational Baseball Hall of Fame and supervised by Larry Lester and Dick Clark; a research team collected statistics from thousands of boxscores of league-sanctioned games.^[15] The first results from this study were the statistics for Negro league Hall of Famers elected prior to 2006, which were published inShades of Glory by Lawrence D. Hogan. These statistics included the official Negro league statistics for Buck Leonard as of 2006.^[16][17]

After seven Negro leagues were declared major leagues in December 2020,Baseball Reference added Negro League statistics compiled by the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database to its website.^[18]

Link including Negro Leagues statistics officially entered into Major League Baseball’s official records:https://www.mlb.com/player/buck-leonard-818520

These statistics include the official Negro major league statistics (which differ from Major League Baseball's own record book) for Buck Leonard as of 2021.^[19][b]

Source:^[20]

• Clark, Dick; Lester, Larry (1994),The Negro Leagues Book, Cleveland, Ohio: Society for American Baseball Research
• Hogan, Lawrence D. (2006),Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball, Washington DC: National Geographic, pp. 392–93,ISBN 0-7922-5306-X
• Treto Cisneros, Pedro (2002),The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics, 1937–2001, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company,ISBN 0-7864-1378-6
• Payment, Simone (2002),Buck Leonard, New York, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group Inc.,ISBN 0-8239-3473-X

• Career statistics fromMLB · Baseball Reference · Baseball Reference (Minors) andBaseball-Reference Black Baseball stats andSeamheads
• Buck Leonard at theBaseball Hall of Fame
• Buck Leonard atFind a Grave
• Buck Leonard Oral History Interview (1 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital CollectionArchived 2019-07-03 at theWayback Machine
• Buck Leonard Oral History Interview (2 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital CollectionArchived 2019-07-03 at theWayback Machine
• Buck Leonard Oral History Interview (3 of 3) - National Baseball Hall of Fame Digital CollectionArchived 2019-07-03 at theWayback Machine

• 1907 births
• 1997 deaths
• African-American baseball players
• Alacranes de Durango players
• Algodoneros de Torreón players
• American expatriate baseball players in Mexico
• Baseball players from North Carolina
• Homestead Grays players
• National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
• Portsmouth Merrimacs players
• Sportspeople from Rocky Mount, North Carolina
• 20th-century African-American sportsmen
• 20th-century American sportsmen

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