Ryan Howard was a rookie with the Philadelphia Phillies just putting baseball on notice with his moonshot home runs when he met Buck O’Neil, a champion of Black ballplayers during a monumental, eight-decade career on and off the field.
Howard was introduced to O’Neil as a modern-day Josh Gibson, one of the Negro Leagues greatest players who hit .466 for the 1943 Homestead Grays. Howard, who hit at least 45 homers four times in his career, was too embarrassed to accept the comparison.
