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Posnanski: The Buck O'Neil Award

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But maybe the best way to describe Roland Hemond is to tell the story of when Bill Veeck bought the Chicago White Sox. Hemond was the general manager, and Veeck told him he needed to "let your imagination run." Many other owners and managers will tell their people to think out of the box, but with Veeck you know that when he said think of out of the box, he meant WAY out of the box. So when Hemond showed up at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida -- site of the Winter Meetings -- and took one look at the lobby, his imagination took hold. He rushed to see Veeck and said: "What if we grab a table and put up a sign that says 'Open for Business?'" Of course Veeck loved it. And they did it -- had a table right in the middle of the lobby, with that sign on it, and open chairs for any general manager who wanted to sit down. They made four trades in a flurry of an afternoon -- a couple right at the deadline -- and no one who was there that day will ever forget it.