By John Klima

In the last years of his life, Buck O'Neil wouldn't slow down when his travel schedule took him from one end of the country to another. He would often show up at minor league ballparks for nights to honor the Negro Leagues. His last professional at-bat came the summer before he died, when he put a jersey on, tucked it into his blue jeans, and drew a walk for a club in the independent Northern League.

It was in that time that O'Neil said that he loved the guys in that league who played for nothing more than the love of the game. The sentiment often got clouded, but it was true. Buck loved the guys who people thought were too old to still be playing. Loved the guys who kept playing even when some people asked why they were still playing. Loved the guys who thought quitting was not a disservice to themselves, but an insult to the game. He loved the guys who loved it as much as he did.

Derek Nicholson is in his first season in the Northern League. He's 31 now, a 10-year pro, and the perks aren't as nice in the independent leagues as they are in organized ball. He's playing first base for Joliet, having a good season, and the nice part is that he can drive to Wrigley Field on off-days. He's as happy watching a big league game as he is watching a high school game with his old prep pal, Evan Fujinaga, the coach at Palos Verdes. He's got a mental map in his head of the bars in Joliet that have MLB packages so he can watch the Dodgers.

Not everyone in baseball is a baseball man. The game is full of goons, be it at any level, guys who play for what's in it for them, not for what the game means to them. If you discredit a guy like Nicholson because he's played for 10 years and hasn't played in the big leagues, then you may as well stop reading this, because you won't get it. The game is full of money, pride and ego, the pursuit of status and the quest to be a commodity. Then there are guys with less talent and enormous desire, who, as it turns out, often leave more to the game than the guys who could hit a baseball as easily as pouring a glass of water.

"My ego went out the door a long time ago," Nicholson said from Fargo, N.D., where he was thrilled to hear Vin Scully calling a Dodgers game in the background of a cell phone conversation. "I'm just a baseball lifer. That's who I am. I have no regrets about my career. I've done pretty much everything in baseball except play in the big leagues. I've done exactly what I wanted to do. I've had a 10-year baseball career. I can't fathom doing anything else. I know, because I still work in the off-season. You know what? Those jobs suck."

Fujinaga keeps in touch with Nicholson and knows his number off the top of his head. Fujinaga and Nicholson remain tight from their high school days. Fujinaga pitched at Peninsula and Nicholson at West Torrance. They played at Harbor and went to the University of Florida together. Fujinaga has fond memories of all the fans Nicholson had in Florida and their beverage of choice. In the off-season, Nicholson plays inter-squad games at Palos Verdes, where Fujinaga is a pretty good baseball coach.

"He's a Crash Davis type of guy," Fujinaga said, and he didn't mean it as an insult.

"I don't take it as one," Nicholson said. "How can I? The day I stop having fun is the day I take off the spiked shoes and put on ordinary shoes. I love baseball. I really feel like I can still play even if it's at the Independent level. I'd rather suit up and play in Joliet than go to work anywhere else."

Nicholson has been around the baseball block since he signed in 1998. His career reads like a travel itinerary. He's been on more clubs, played in more ballparks and in more leagues than most, played with and against guys who went to the big leagues. After three season with the Houston organization, he went to the Tigers in the minor league Rule V draft and found his way to Triple-A three times, including a solid 2002 season.

The independent leagues are a new experience for every ballplayer who has spent his entire career in organized baseball. You never quite know what you'll get out of it. Some major league clubs don't scout independent league teams because they feel it is a slap in the face to ask their scouts to cover players who have been released. Its not uncommon for a player to bounce back into organized ball when a club needs a position filled on a minor league team. But more often than not, that's not a future. That's a fill-in.

That leaves a player to be a professional and to adhere to one of the lessons of baseball that will always be true, even though you'll never find it in an instructional guide. You have to have fun, or this game will bury you.

You'll have to pry the uniform out of Nicholson's cold dead hands. If he were to die with a bat in his hands, he'd a happy man. Not that he's ready to give it up any time soon. When he's done playing, he wants to stay in baseball and keep the uniform.

"I'd love to get into managing," he said. "I feel like I have a knack for it. I've earned a lot of respect in the game. I've never burned a bridge. I see myself staying in uniform when I'm done playing because I think I've become a serious product of my environment. That's the way I want to stay in the game. I genuinely care about players and people. I feel like I'm a selfless player in a selfish world."

Nicholson never met a game he didn't like. It wouldn't matter if it was at Harbor College or Dodger Stadium. When you love baseball, well, you'll play through anything to play one more time.