As regular readers will know, I am a huge baseball fan. Yesterday the sporting world lost a great ambassador, not only for the Negro Leagues, but for all of baseball, with the passing of Buck O’Neil.

Buck O’Neil, a batting champion in the Negro Leagues before becoming the first black to serve as a major league coach, has died. He was 94.

The beloved national figure as the unofficial goodwill spokesman for the Negro Leagues died Friday night in a Kansas City hospital, eight months after he fell one vote short of the Hall of Fame.

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Always projecting warmth, wit and a sunny optimism that sometimes seemed surprising for a man who lived so much of his life in a climate of racial injustice, O’Neil remained remarkably vigorous into his 90s. He became as big a star as the Negro League greats whose stories he traveled the country to tell.

He would be in New York taping the “Late Show With David Letterman” one day, then back home on the golf course the next day shooting his age, a feat he first accomplished at 75.

“But it’s not a good score any more,” he quipped on his 90th birthday.

Long popular in Kansas City, O’Neil he rocketed into national stardom in 1994 when filmmaker Ken Burns featured him in his groundbreaking documentary “Baseball.”

It was the Burns’ documentary that introduced O’Neil to the world, but it was his obvious love for the game that endeared him to both casual and rabid fans. His wit and warmth will be missed.