Leonard was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in along with Gibson. At his induction ceremony on August 7 of that year, Leonard said, "We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball shoes and wore baseball uniforms and we thought we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game and we liked to play it. If we didn't, we wouldn't have played because there wasn't any money in it."