I Was Right On Time

An eye-opening biography of baseball legend Buck O’Neil, first baseman and then manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, who witnessed the heyday of the Negro leagues and their ultimate demise.

From Babe Ruth to Bo Jackson, from Cool Papa Bell to Lou Brock, Buck O’Neil had seen it all. In I Was Right on Time, he charmingly recalled his days as a ballplayer and as a Black American in a racially divided country. From his barnstorming days with the likes of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson or to the day in 1962 when he became the first Black American coach in the major leagues, I Was Right On Time takes us on a trip not only through baseball’s past but through America’s as well.

Buck O’Neil was a former all-star player, the manager for the Kansas City Monarchs, the chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. O’Neil has the distinction of being the first Black American to hold a coaching position in major league baseball. He died in 2006.