In his speech at his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, former Negro League player Buck Leonard said, Now, we in the Negro Leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing.... We loved the game and we liked to play it. But we thought that we should have and could have made the major leagues. The Negro Leagues had some of the best talent in the game, but from their earliest days they were segregated from those leagues that received all the recognition.