KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A fundraising campaign started Friday to help finish the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center.

It’s the culmination of a month-long celebration of Kansas City Monarchs legend Buck O’Neil’s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The “Thanks A Million, Buck” campaign encourages baseball fans around the world to donate to Buck O’Neil’s dream of creating a baseball research and education center.

Organizers hope that by O’Neil’s birthday, Nov. 13, they’ll have raised more than $1 million.

“This first effort is to rally Buck O’Neil fans around the world to consider donating one buck, at least one buck, to Buck,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. “And when we say every buck counts, we mean it.”

The research and education center would be created in the former Paseo YMCA building near the 18th and Vine District, the birthplace of the Negro Leagues in 1920.

The museum also announced that on Aug. 12, Buck O’Neil’s Hall of Fame plaque from Cooperstown, New York, will be at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum as part of the Celebration of the Negro Leagues taking place at Kauffman Stadium that weekend.