One of the outstanding Major League Baseball players of his era, Bill Buckner is unfairly remembered by far too many people for a single play, one that constituted perhaps one ten-thousandth of a percent of his otherwise distinguished 22-year career in Major League Baseball.

It turns out Buckner, who died at age 69 this past Memorial Day, was just as upstanding, successful, and honorable off the field as he was a standout on it.

Few human beings are capable of showing the grace under fire Buckner did after his 10^th-inning misplay of Mookie Wilson’s ground ball in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series finished (note: “finished,” not “caused”) a crushing Red Sox loss, one that took on even greater significance the following night, when the New York Mets won the decisive 7^th game and extended Boston’s baseball championship-less streak to 68 years.

Buckner’s miscue made him a national punchline and a New England punching bag. Unfairly and shrilly vilified for the better part of two decades afterward, a lesser man would have turned bitter, or just disappeared, but Buckner did neither. Instead, he immersed himself in his roles as a prosperous Idaho businessman who was active in his community, a caring parent, and an avid outdoorsman.

Those who defined Buckner by his one notorious misplay did a disservice to him not only as a human being but as a baseball player. The National League batting champion in 1980, Buckner rapped out 2715 hits in his career, a figure topped by only 65 of the 19,564 (and counting) players in Major League Baseball history. In addition, the outfielder/first sacker who played the latter portion of his career on legs similar to (or perhaps even worse than) Mickey Mantle’s helped lead teams from both the National (Dodgers) and American (Red Sox) Leagues to a World Series appearance.  He was also one of baseball’s most difficult batters to strike out, never whiffing more than 39 times in a season. How remarkable is that? New York Times baseball columnist Tyler Kepner tweeted that on the last full day of Buckner’s life 16 different players struck out three times in a major league baseball game, something Buckner never did in 22 big league seasons.

Sadly, Buckner’s impressive numbers may not be quite enough to make him a baseball immortal; three of his left-handed hitting contemporaries, Rusty Staub, Vada Pinson, and Al Oliver, and another lefthanded hitter who came along later, Johnny Damon, all rapped out more hits than Buckner, and none of them have been enshrined in the sport’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Neither have Steve Garvey, Mickey Vernon, or Jose Cruz, all outstanding players whose career numbers are similar to those complied by Buckner. But perhaps there’s hope.

Consider “Sunny Jim” Bottomley, whose perpetually cheerful disposition earned him his nickname. He played in the major leagues for sixteen distinguished seasons in the 1920’s and 30’s, and compiled career numbers not unlike Buckner’s. The National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1928, when he led the circuit in home runs and RBI, Bottomley played for two World Series-winning teams with the St. Louis Cardinals. He achieved lasting fame on September 16, 1924, the day he drove in 12 runs in a single game against the Brooklyn Robins. That established the single-game record for runs batted in that still stands 95 years later, although it’s been tied once (by another Cardinal, Mark Whiten, on September 7, 1993). When Bottomley retired after the 1937 season his 2313 hits ranked him 38^th on the all-time list, and although 31 of those ahead of him on the list were ultimately enshrined in Cooperstown, Bottomley, who died in 1959, never received serious consideration for that honor himself.

Until fifteen years later. In 1974 when Bottomley was elected to the Hall of Fame by baseball’s Veterans Committee, which at the time included one of his influential ex-teammates, 1947 Cooperstown inductee Frankie Frisch.

Could history repeat itself? Consider the possibility that in 2034  one of Buckner’s Hall of Fame ex-teammates, like Jim Rice, Ryne Sandberg, or maybe even Roger Clemens, occupies a spot on the group charged with selecting Hall of Famers from bygone days, and decides to do a little persuading of his fellow committee members. Perhaps then Buckner will deservedly gain inclusion to the Hall, and with it ultimate vindication from being unfairly and inaccurately characterized as merely a historical footnote, the guy who let Mookie Wilson’s ground ball go through his legs.