Hoping to clear up an oversight, the Surprise Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission voted to add baseball legend Buck O’Neil to its Recreation Hall of Fame.
Mr. O’Neil, a former Negro Leagues player and manager, was a big supporter of bringing spring training baseball to Surprise and acted as an ambassador to the sport for the city before his death in 2006 at age 94.
Parks and Recreation Director Donna Miller told the commission Feb. 23 city staff investigated and found Mr. O’Neil wasn’t in the city’s rec Hall of Fame, despite the city naming a strip of road just north of Surprise Stadium Buck O’Neil Way in his honor a year after his death.
