Among the many momentos John Nowak has from his grandfather Steve O'Neill's days in baseball is an autograph. It reads, "To the finest manager in baseball," and is signed by Ted Williams.

Quite a complement from one of the game's all-time greatest players.

Yet O'Neill is worthy of such praise.

In 14 seasons as a manager, the late Minooka native never had a losing season. He won 1,040 games with four teams, and in 1945, he led the Detroit Tigers to the World Series title in seven games over the Chicago Cubs.

Whether or not those accomplishments are worthy of Cooperstown remains to be seen.

O'Neill is one of 10 finalists on this year's Veterans Committee managers/umpires ballot for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Today, at baseball's Winter Meetings in Indianapolis, the 16-member electorate will review the candidates on the ballot and vote. The results will be announced Monday morning.

This is not the first time O'Neill has been up for consideration for the Hall of Fame.

Born July 6, 1891, he was one of four brothers to escape working in the coal mines and make it to the major leagues. He played 1,590 games over a 17-year career - all but one of them as a catcher - with the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and St. Louis Browns. Regarded as one of the game's best defensive catchers, he batted .263 for his career and won a World Series ring with the Indians in 1920.

"He probably should have been in the Hall of Fame years ago," grandson Michael Nowak said in a telephone interview from Aurora, Ohio. "His statistics are as good as another other catcher's of his era."

After his playing days ended in 1928, O'Neill spent several seasons managing in the minor leagues before replacing Walter Johnson as manager of the Indians in the middle of the 1935 season. He won 199 games in Cleveland in 2½ seasons.

He also managed the Detroit Tigers from 1943-48 and won 509 games, highlighted by the team's World Series triumph in 1945. He won 150 games as manager of the Boston Red Sox from 1950-51 and 182 games with the Philadelphia Phillies from 1952-54.

On three occasions, O'Neill took over a team during the season and that team responded by playing winning baseball the rest of the way.

More than wins, however, O'Neill was well-respected. He was known for being a player's manager.

Michael Nowak tells the story of what happened to the Phillies in 1954 after O'Neill was fired as manager at the all-star break. At the time, the team had a record of 40-37 and was in third place, 13½ games back in the National League standings. The Phillies wound up finishing the season 75-79 and in fourth place, 22 games back.

"This basically was the same team that were the Whiz Kids in 1950," Michael Nowak said. "There was a reason why (the team fell back in the standings). We always believed it was because of Steve."

Days after being fired by Philadelphia, O'Neill passed through Scranton on his way back to his home in Cleveland. When sports writer Chic Feldman went looking for O'Neill to write a story, he found him at a Little League game, sitting on the bench, helping coach the team.

"His philosophy in baseball was to treat everybody fairly," Michael Nowak said. "Whether it be Little League all the way up to the majors, you have to instill a sense of passion and pride in the players and just treat them fairly. Probably one of the managers who does that in this day and age is Joe Torre. He comes across to me as the same kind of manager my grandfather was."

Just how well-liked and respected O'Neill was didn't truly become evident to his family until his death on Jan. 26, 1962, six days after he suffered a heart attack.

Baseball commissioner Ford Frick called O'Neill "a man with no enemies in baseball." Many former teammates and players attended the funeral, and Michael Nowak remembers it being the first time he saw grown men cry.

"It's one thing when it's family, but when you see strangers walking into a funeral home with tears in their eyes, it's something I'll never forget," Michael Nowak said. "It just goes to show how much respect and love everybody that Steve came in contact with had for the man. He was a giant among men."

And not just in baseball. There is the story about how O'Neill one day picked up a young hitchhiker who was running away from home. At the end of the ride, O'Neill gave the boy some money and told him to go back home, that you can't run away from your problems.

Years later, at O'Neill's funeral, a floral arrangement sent and it was from the hitchhiker.

O'Neill was Minooka's favorite son, and he never forgot where he came from. Hundreds greeted him at the Lackawanna Station when he came to town for a celebration in his honor after the Tigers won the 1945 World Series.

"My grandfather was so charitable," John Nowak said in a telephone interview from New York. "He'd come back to Scranton, and if someone needed groceries, the groceries would just appear on the kitchen table with no notice or anything."

There are 55 managers in baseball history who have won 1,000 or more games. O'Neill's 1,040 victories rank him 51st on the all-time wins list. Of the 50 individuals who rank ahead of him, 27 of them are in the Hall of Fame, including Lou Boudreau, who played for O'Neill in Buffalo in the International League in 1939.

Perhaps the time has come for O'Neill to join them in Cooperstown.

"It would be a dream come true and an honor that I feel is long overdue," Michael Nowak said. "As the years go by, people tend to forget the older players who brought baseball to what it was or what it is today. Steve respected the game and was an ambassador of the game."

Contact the writer: swalsh@timesshamrock.com Steve O'Neill was standing on second base at Ebbets Field.

It was Game 1 of the 1920 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Brooklyn Robins. O'Neill had just doubled off Brooklyn pitcher Rube Marquard in his first World Series at-bat to drive in a run and give the Indians a 2-0 lead.

Yet all O'Neill could think about was Scranton and the big scoreboard.

Before the days of radio and television, baseball fans would gather in front of newspaper offices to "watch" the World Series on boards attached to the building. As the newspaper received accounts of the games across the telegraph wire, board operators would move players around the board to illustrate each play.

As a boy growing up in Minooka, O'Neill often stood outside the Scranton Times building and watched its World Series board. He dreamed of one day having his name appear on the board.

So after hitting his double, it occurred to him that his name had, indeed, made the board in Scranton.

In a 1944 article in The Sporting News, O'Neill called that moment his greatest thrill in baseball.

"As I stood on second base, I was thinking of Scranton and the big scoreboard in front of the newspaper office and the several hundred persons that crowded the street in front of the building," O'Neill said in the article. "They had watched as the operator put my name beside the "At Bat" sign and now he must be moving the little figure from home plate to second base, showing that I had doubled. In that moment, I realized a boyhood dream."

Later in the game, O'Neill had another RBI double to help the Indians win Game One, 3-1. He wound up batting .333 (7-for-21) in the Series to help the Indians capture the best-of-nine series, 5 games to 2, over the Robins, who changed their name to Dodgers in 1932.

Making the board in Scranton, however, meant as much - or more - to O'Neill as winning the championship.

Stephen Francis O'Neill