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I Was Right On Time My Journey From The Negro Leagues To The Majors by Buck O'Neil and Steve Wulf Fireside, 1997 | Buy the book

Anyway, the promoter of the Zulu Cannibal Giants was Syd Pollock, a vaudeville theater owner out of Tarrytown, New York, who also used to work for the Miami Giants. Syd somehow got me confused with Buck O'Neal, so he started billing me as Buck O'Neil, and it stuck once the black newspapers picked up on it and began writing me up.

Nancy was also a case of mistaken identity, except it wasn't really a mistake -- it was done on purpose. When Satchel and I were with the Monarchs, we played this one game on an Indian reservation near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was there that Satchel, who had a weakness for a pretty face, and the more of them the better, met this beautiful Indian maiden named Nancy, and since we were going to Chicago to play the Chicago American Giants, he invited Nancy to visit him there. She had some relatives there or something, so she accepted his invitation, and he told her we were staying at the Evans Hotel.

Well, now we were in Chicago, and I was sitting in the coffee shop of the Evans Hotel when I saw a cab pull up, and out stepped Nancy. I went out to greet her and tell her that Satchel was upstairs, and the bellhop carried her bags to his room.

A few minutes passed, and another cab pulled up, and this time out stepped Satchel's fiancée, Lahoma, who wasn't supposed to be coming by, as far as Satchel knew. Seeing how this might complicate things just a little bit, I jumped up and greeted her. "Lahoma," I said, "so good to see you. Satchel's not here right now, but he should be along shortly. Why don't you sit here with me, and I'll have the bellman take your bags up to the room."

I went over to the bellman, explained the situation to him, and told him to move Nancy and her bags into the room next to mine, which was also next door to Satchel's, and then to knock on Satchel's door and tell him Lahoma was here. A few minutes later, the bellman came down and gave me the sign that everything was okay. In the meantime, Satchel had climbed down the fire escape, and, lo and behold, there he came, walking down the street.

I said, "Look, Lahoma, here comes old Satchel now." Satch gave her a big greeting -- "Lahoma, what a nice surprise!" -- and led her upstairs.

That might have ended the trouble, except that later that night, after we had turned in, I heard Satchel's door open and close. Then I heard him knock on Nancy's door. I think he wanted to give her some money and apologize, but while he's whispering kind of loud, "Nancy! Nancy!" I hear his door open again, and I knew it was Lahoma coming out to see what was going on. I jumped out of my bed, opened my door, and said, "Yeah, Satch. What do you want?" And he said, "Why, Nancy. There you are. I was looking for you. What time is the game tomorrow?"

And from that night on, until his dying day, Satchel called me Nancy.

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