Satch
The life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
From delinquency to diamond
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 1
Written for print on March 21, 2001
He was one of a kind, a baseball icon, and one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. He was the star of the barnstormers where he was advertised as “World’s greatest pitcher, Guaranteed to Strike Out the First Nine Men.” He was a first-rate entertainer and showman, outspoken, and a philosopher. Joe DiMaggio called him “the best I’ve ever faced and the fastest.” He is Leroy Robert Paige, just plain Satchel or Satch..
Leroy was born in a four-room house in the black section of Mobile, Alabama on July 7, 1900 or 1903 or 1905 or 1906 or 1908 the seventh of eleven children. His correct age eventually became part of the Paigian folklore as accurate birth certificates were often lacking or questionable at best. After Satchel’s death, boyhood friend Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe claimed Paige was born in 1900 although The Baseball Encyclopedia lists the year as 1906.
Paige earned his nickname by toting luggage for passengers at the Mobile railroad station at the age of seven. By personally improvising a rig that involved a stick and some ropes, he could carry up to six bags at the same time receiving a dime per bag. The other porters said he looked like a “walking satchel tree”, and it stuck.
As did most youngsters the barefoot Paige spent much of his time by throwing rocks, often at other kids, and bottle tops that eventually developed his remarkable control. He eventually replaced rocks with baseballs, and soon become the best junior pitcher in the area. With little guidance at home Satchel’s life evolved into a combination of fighting, breaking windows, truancy, and other acts of delinquency. At the age of twelve the immature black lad was caught shoplifting, and on July 24, 1918 he was sent to the state Industrial School for Negro Children at Mt. Meigs, Alabama. It was, in effect, a reformatory where the boy could and did play baseball and learn the act of throwing a ball. You might note that Satchel’s early years were much like that of Babe Ruth.
Satchel Paige was a lost and frightened little boy when he entered the institution, but there he received food, clothes, and found a baseball team with a good coach. When he walked out of the school five years later, Leroy Paige had now grown to six feet and four inches, and weighed 150 pounds with a shoe size 14. He said, “There was a lot of me, but it was all up and down.” Leroy Paige had become a man.
He now needed a job, and what else could he do besides throwing a baseball – fast and accurate. The former troublemaker was now tall, slim, and long-armed although he did not look like a pitcher. He “ran like a turkey, and his motion was stiff – like the Tin Man on the mound.” After years of working on his pitching skills in the reform school, Paige was now ready to begin his legendary throwing career. Not only did he throw that blazing fast ball Satch had a wild and windmill type delivery plus excellent control. The ball went where Satchel wanted it to go, and had two main pitches in his repertoire – hard and harder. He could do anything with the ball - throw it overhand, underhand, or sidearm. The batter might see a change-up, curve, knuckleball, or fastball.
Satch had a nickname for some of his descriptive pitches: “Two-hump blooper” that was a moving changeup; “Little Tom”, a medium fastball; and “Long Tom”, a hard fastball. Paige might call on his “hesitation pitch” that was first used when throwing rocks at other kids. In the “hesitation pitch”, the tall boy from Mobile would suddenly stop halfway in his windup before continuing his delivery. One pitch was the “be” ball “cause it be where I want it to be.” Then there was even the “thoughtful stuff” that gave the hitters something to think about.
Dick “Rowdy Richard” Bartell who had eighteen years in the big leagues once said of Paige, “I hit against Satchel Paige in a couple exhibition games. He would wind up and be looking at third baseball while he was pitching sidearm or over or under. But I hit a few hits off him.”
It was not easy for a young man who was just out of reform school, but Satchel was smart with much common sense. He started his almost 40-year baseball career with a local black semi-pro club, the Mobile Tigers, where he made a dollar a game. One season he won 30 games while losing only one. Paige was always looking for other teams, and added to his income by helping the groundskeeper for the minor league, all-white Mobile Bears. Some of the Bears once bet Satch a dollar that he could not whiff them all in a row, and pocketed the money by using his “be” ball.
Next week: Part 2 on Satch
Satch
The life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
“I just had to let him paint me white.”
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 2
Written for print on March 28, 2001
In the late 1800’s black ballplayers could be found on some low minor league team rosters, and brothers Fleet and Welday Walker were some of the few who did play at the major league level. Soon, however, all black ballplayers would be closed to every professional baseball league for the next six decades primarily because of one man. His name was Adrian “Cap” Anson.
Cap was baseball’s first superstar, the manager of the Chicago White Sox, a baseball innovator (He originated the idea of preseason training for his players.), and one of the most powerful men in baseball. Prior to an exhibition game on July 19,1887 the Marshalltown, Iowa born Anson threatened to pull his White Sox team off the field unless the opponent’s black hurler was removed from the game. It was the bigoted Anson who became the main force in having professional baseball exclude all black players from the game by urging the club owners to join together and enact an unwritten law that came to be called – “The Gentlemen’s Agreement.”
After the white professional leagues shut the gate for all black ballplayers, the Negro professional baseball leagues were established. There were the Negro American and American League, but similar to the white counterparts only by name. The black teams had uncertain schedules, and inaccurate or unreliable statistics. Some players kept track of their achievements, but most did not. A team not only played against other clubs in the league, but semi-pros or any other club that might draw some paying fans. Players jumped from team to team and league to league, and umpires were often incompetent or ineffective.
The black players had problems with transportation, housing, and where to eat. They were usually housed in black homes or Jim Crow hotels and roadhouses where they were “continually under attack by bedbugs”, ate in their busses, and according to Satch, “We learned to sleep on our suitcases.”
Hall of Famer Willie Mays recalled his days in the Negro Leagues with the Birmingham Black Barons. “The major leagues were easy. I learned baseball the hard way; the Negro Leagues made me.” Mahlon Duckett of the Philadelphia Stars said, “In the majors you couldn’t throw spitters. We could. In the majors you didn’t see a lot of knock-down pitches. We saw them all the time. We had to hit balls doctored up so bad you’d think carpenters worked on them.” That was the life of Satchel Paige and all other black ballplayers from the late 1800’s until Jackie Robinson cracked the “Gentleman’s Agreement” when he debuted with the Montreal Royals, a Brooklyn farm club, on April 18, 1946.
In May of 1926 Satchel left the Mobile Tigers for the Chattanooga White Sox (They became the Black Lookouts the following year.) for $50 a month, and on May 1 at the approximately age of 19, Satch played his first game in the Negro Southern League beating the Birmingham Black Barons 5-4. Paige claims that he lost only two games in two years, and said, “They thought about passing a law against me. It would have been the only way they could stop me.”
Paige’s reputation grew, and so it wasn’t long before the man with the elastic right arm became a celebrity in the world of southern black baseball. In two years his paycheck grew to $200 a month, and he began to find the joys of the night life. He had his own fancy roadster car, and played guitar with the Louis Armstrong band. No matter what else he did, making money was always at the top of his favorites.
The lanky twirler came to epitomize the black itinerant ballplayer. From 1926 to 1948 he hurled for black teams such as Chattanooga, Birmingham, Baltimore Black Sox, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and the Kansas City Monarchs. Satch added to his wallet by barnstorming around the country meeting not only Major Leaguers such as Bob Feller and Dizzy Dean, but also the 1936 Olympic star sprinter Jesse Owens and Babe Didrikson billed as “the world’s greatest girl athlete.” Paige pitched in such places as Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, and stated that he had played on over 100 teams in his 40-year career.
It was a shame, Satch said, that he could not play in the big leagues because of his color. Once the owner of the white Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association offered Paige $500 to pitch for the lily white Lookouts against the Atlanta Crackers – on one condition, “I had to let him paint me white.” Satch knew that he would not fool anyone, and hated to give up all that money when a friend talked him out of it.
“White, black, green, yellow, orange – it don’t make any difference,” he declared. “Only one person can pitch like me. That’s Ol’ Satch himself.”
Next week: Part 3 – More on Ol’ Satch
Satch
The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 3
(Written for print on April 4, 2001)
The dictionary describes the word “barnstorming” as traveling around the countryside presenting plays, lectures, and various exhibitions such as flying, parachute jumping, and, of course, baseball games. Barnstorming has since disappeared in baseball including double headers and Ladies’ Day, but in the last century many ballplayers, both black and white, added to their often meager paychecks by playing with teams that usually moved around the country during the off season. While the black ballplayers were not allowed to perform on the same field as did white professional players, they could and did in barnstorming contests in both the United States and other countries. Many of the acclaimed and more publicized ballplayers of the white baseball world barnstormed for money.
Charlie Gehringer, the Hall of Famer second baseman for the Detroit Tigers for nineteen years, was one of the many barnstorming big leaguers. “We used to go barnstorming after the season and play games all over the country…lots of real good guys who became good friends…another good thing about barnstorming was the money. I could make more in a month than I could in a whole season in the Majors.”
It is believed that Satchel pitched in 2500 games in his long and illustrious career winning 2000 on the barnstorming tours. Satch always followed the money. In two years he jumped from Birmingham to Baltimore to Nashville to Cleveland and to the fabled Pittsburgh Crawfords where he had one of his longest stays, 1931-1936. The owner of the Crawfords was Gus Greenlee of the Pittsburgh numbers rackets, and had just built a new ball stadium. He enticed the best black players with big salaries, and was able to put together one of the great baseball teams of the Negro League with five future Hall of Famers: Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Judy Johnson, Josh Gibson, and “Cool Papa” Bell.
Long hitting Josh, the “black Babe Ruth”, and pinpoint pitcher Satchel, probably the two best of all black players, had a running friendly competition as to who was THE best when both were with the Crawfords. Satch once said to Josh, “You never had a chance to hit off me and I never had a chance to pitch to you, but one day, in a big game, with it all on the line, we’re gonna see who’s the better and what you can do against me and what I can do against you.” That question was answered during in the 1942 Negro League World Series Field between the Kansas City Monarchs with Satch, and Josh on the Homestead Grays. The games were held at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
The series opened in Washington with Satch throwing five shutout innings in Game One as the Monarchs went on to win the championship in four straight. In Game Two held in Pittsburgh, KC was leading 8-4 with two out in the ninth. Satch had come on in the seventh, and was still on the mound when he gave up a triple down the third base line to the leadoff man. Satchel called time, and waved the manager to come out. “You know what I’m about to fixin’ to do? We already got two outs and I only need one more out. I’m gonna put the next batter on base. Then the next man is a good hitter, and so I’m gonna put him on base. I want to pitch to Josh with the bases loaded and prove who’s the best.”
Manager Frank Duncan turned to Paige’s battery mate and said, “…whatever Satch wants to do, let him do.” The indestructible Satch was now about to put on a show for the 35,000 baseball fans who just knew that something was going to happen.
The bases were full when Paige yelled to Gibson who was walking up to the plate, “Hey, Josh, you remember what we talked about in Pittsburgh about who’s the best and what would happen when we faced each other someday?” “Yeah, Satch,” Josh replied, “I remember.” “Well, Josh, this is the day.”
As he dropped the resin bag, Satch yelled in, “I’m going to throw you three fastballs, nothing but fastballs. I’m not going to trick you. I’ll throw you three fastballs. The first one will be letter high.” The batter didn’t move as strike one went by. Satch yelled in again. “Now, Josh, this one is gonna be a little bit faster, but at the belt.” The pitcher kicked his leg high and fired. Josh watched it go by. STRIKE TWO!
“Don’t worry, Josh, I’m not gonna brush you back. I’m not gonna throw smoke at your yolk, I’m gonna throw a pea at your knee, only it’s gonna be faster that the last one.” Gibson started to swing when he saw Satch’s specialty pitch, the “Long Tom”, coming in, but missed. STRIKE THREE! As they walked off the field, Paige commented to his catcher, “Nobody hits Satch’s fastball when he don’t want him to.”
Next week: Part 4 – More on Ol’ Satch
Satch
The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 4
In this more enlightened time many may still think of Leroy “Satchel” Paige as a slow-thinking, shuffling, “barely literate stereotype of the southern darky.” Not so. Satchel was articulate, quick-witted, and perceptive. Along with his natural showmanship and an almost indestructible rubber right arm, Paige became the star of the Negro Leagues, one of the best pitchers of all time, and finally a member of the baseball Hall of Fame.
When the country “discovered” the Negro Leagues and Satchel Paige in a 1941 Saturday Evening Post article, the reader usually finished the article with the idea that Satch and his friends were nothing but clowns. Although Time and Life magazines also did pieces on Paige and even suggested integration in the big leagues, it was difficult for the white world to see black baseball “portrayed in a dignified manner.”
In games including white big league players Satchel often put on an act of servile and passiveness so he could better enjoy the usual outcome. In one off-season barnstorming contest with the Dizzy Dean All-Stars that included the St. Louis Cardinal’s well-known and speedy Pepper Martin, Satch put on his best obsequious manner. Satch knew who Martin was as well as did any other baseball fan, but when the first batter came up to bat, Satch wanted to know, “Are you Mr. Martin?” As the following players arrived at the plate, the big pitcher continued to ask in his most humble manner, “Are you Mr. Martin?”
Finally THE Mr. Martin arrived at home plate smiling and swinging his bat. “Mr. Pepper Martin?” The Card player continued to smile. “They tell me you kin hit. (Pause) Then hit this.” Pepper Martin struck out in three pitches.
Long before the world began to conserve water, air, and land, Paige was already a friend of his environment. Buck O’Neil, one of great Negro League players, a close friend of Satchel, and the “…charming, fatherly voice” of Ken Burns’s television series called Baseball knew that Satch had a love affair with all living things. In his book I Was Right on Time Buck tells of one fishing trip in the Florida Everglades. One morning when they saw many snakes including water moccasins writhing around their boat, Buck took his .22 rifle and was ready to start shooting. Satch quickly said, “Put that rifle down…Listen, if those snakes were hanging around the Sir John Calvert Hotel, sure it’d be okay to kill ‘em. But this is their domain. We’re the intruders. Let’s just take our three fish and go home.” O’Neil adds that Satch would shoot just one bird or take one fish, only what he would use.
Satchel Paige was married twice, the first to Janet Howard, a young waitress whom he had met at a restaurant in Pittsburgh. They wed in 1934, and divorced nine years later. His second wife was Lahoma Brown whom he married in 1947 that resulted in: Pamela Jean (born in1948), Carolyn Lahoma ( 1949), Linda Sue (1951), Robert LeRoy (1952), Lula Ouida (1958), and Rita Jean (1960) when Satch was at least 53 years of age, probably older.
It has been said that Satch had a weakness for any pretty face. He was engaged to Lahoma when he met an attractive Indian lady named Nancy while playing a game near a Sioux Falls, South Dakota reservation. The ball club was on the way to Chicago and so Satch decided to invite Nancy to meet him there at the team hotel. Buck was in a coffee shop near the hotel when he saw Nancy get out of a taxi. He told her that Satch was upstairs, and would have a bellhop take her luggage up to Paige’s room. Moments later Lahoma pulled up in her taxi. It was the usual French farce with Satch working hard and furious keeping the two ladies apart that night. Satchel did later tell Lahoma who always loved the story.
The tall tosser from Mobile was always on the road. He once pitched 29 games in 29 days. He threw for a white semipro team in Bismarck, North Dakota before signing to pitch for the House of David where all the players wore long, dark beards – expect for Satchel Paige, the only black player on the team. He was given false red whiskers, but almost lost a game when he became tangled up in his fake beard.
His baseball travels also took him to the Dominican Republic when recruited by dictator Rafael Trujillo where the many-armed soldiers made their game look more like “a firing squad.” After refusing to report to the Newark Eagles, he was on the road to Mexico where he developed a sore pitching arm. Next was the Kansas City Monarchs where he nursed his arm back to health and help lead the team to the 1942 and 1946 Negro League World Series.
Satchel was over 40 years of age with countless innings on that questionable right arm when Jackie Robinson cracked the Major League baseball color line in 1947. Paige knew that he was too old and that it was too late for him, but Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians, signed Satch to a Major League contract on July 7, 1948, his 42nd (?) birthday.
Next: More on Ol’ Satch
Satch
The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 5
Bill Veeck (1914-1987) was a maverick, but brilliant baseball club owner. He also was a promoter, showman, and a baseball innovator. With astute trading, Sportshirt Bill saw his 1954 Cleveland Indians and 1959 Chicago White Sox win pennants, and the 1948 Indians claim their first World Series championship in 28 years. He authored such stunts as: Sending a midget up to bat, having the fans raise signs calling for managerial decisions as the manager sat quietly in a nearby rocking chair (his team won), bringing in the first exploding scoreboard, putting on a “Good Old Joe Early” night (he was just an average fan), finding the American League’s first black player, Larry Doby, …and the signing of ageless Satchel Paige.
Satch always wanted to be the first black ballplayer one to break the color line, but lost out to Jackie Robinson and Doby. Satch was quoted as saying, “When 1948 rolled around, I still had my nose on the window” still afraid that his age would keep him out of the bigs. But then there was Bill Veeck.
The prestigious Sporting News edited by Taylor Spink commented, “To bring in a pitching ‘rookie’ of Paige’s age casts a reflection on the entire scheme of operation in the major leagues. To sign a hurler at Paige’s age is to demean the standards of baseball in the big circuits. Further complicating the situation is the suspicion that if Satchel were white, he would not have drawn a second thought from Veeck.”
The shrewd and canny Veeck thought there might be a few more innings still left in that over-powering right-arm. Bill knew that a Satchel Paige black team of all-stars had recently beaten Bob Feller’s squad made up of white big leaguers as Satchel struck out 16 in an 8-0 victory. Upon the urging of Abe Saperstein, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball troupe, Bill decided to give Satchel a chance.
On July 19, 1948 Satch made his ML debut when Indian manager Lou Boudreau called his new pitcher in for two innings of relief against the St. Louis Browns in Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. The first batter singled, but Satch threw two scoreless innings before leaving for a pinch-hitter making Satch the first black pitcher in the American League. On August 3, 1948 a crowd of 72,434 baseball fans saw Satchel best the Washington Senators 5-3 in his very first start. The fact that the new ballplayer drew record crowds wherever he pitched was not overlooked by Veeck.
The oldest rookie in baseball history won six against one loss, and threw two shutouts while helping the Indians win the pennant. He earned a chance in the World Series, but pitched only two/thirds of an inning with no decision. Veeck later related that after Satch won a game, Bill would send a telegram to Spink describing the contest followed with, “…WINNING PITCHER – PAIGE. DEFINITELY IN LINE FOR THE SPORTING NEWS AWARD AS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR.” After seven writers did vote for Satch as Rookie of the Year, he said, “I declined the position. I was not sure what year the gentlemen had in mind.”
Satch was with Cleveland for two years. When Paige was with the Indians he always left two tickets at the gate in the name of “Mrs. Satchel Paige”. Veeck was not aware that his pitcher was married, and once asked, “Are you married?” The answer was, “No, sir, but I’m in great demand.” In 1949 he pitched in 31 games, and ended the season with a disappointing record of 4 and 7. Veeck sold the Indians, and it was back to barnstorming for Satch.
After Veeck bought the penurious St. Louis Browns in July 1951, he again brought back the old hurler for the next three years. In 1952, at the age of 46 (?) Satch had a fine year winning twelve games and saving eight. He was chosen to the All-Star team making him the oldest All-Star selection in baseball history. Veeck even provided a rocking chair in the bullpen for the antique Paige for use between games. Following the 1953 season Veeck sold the Browns, and the ballclub was moved east to become the Baltimore Orioles. The St. Louis Browns disappeared into baseball oblivion.
Satch hit the road again as a barnstormer, and played with the Kansas City Monarchs before signing with Veeck for the third time with the Miami Marlins of the International League. On August 7, 1956, 50,000 people saw Satch pitch at the age of 50 (?), and ended the year with an 11-4 record. Three years later Veeck left Miami, and so did Satch.
Paige appeared in a western movie, The Wonderful Country with Robert Mitchum, and had a bit part in Don’t Look Back, a story on his own life. He continued to pitch, with Portland in the Pacific Coast League, and some barnstorming with the Indianapolis Clowns. Satch Paige was now at least 60, and his baseball career finally over – or was it?
Next week: The final years
Satch
The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 6
Satchel loved to joke with the fans regarding his age. Most baseball record books list it as July 7, 1906, but it could have been any year between that date and 1900. The now legendary and highly celebrated Satch was still pitching in the 1960’s when Charles O. Finley, the controversial owner of the Kansas City Athletics, brought him back as a publicity stunt on September 25, 1965. It was the old warrior’s last hurrah at the age of 59, but probably more. Only Satchel knew.
He started the night game against the Boston Red Sox, and threw three shutout innings giving up only one hit to Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski. As Satchel left the field the lights were turned off as the fans lit matches and sang “The Old Gray Mare”, “Old Rocking Chair”, and “Darling, I Am Growing Old.” The Sox won the game 5-3 with relief pitcher, Don Mossi, taking the loss. When three years later it was discovered that Satch needed only 158 Major League days in order to qualify for a $7,000-a-year pension, he was given a job as coach with the Atlanta Braves.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1966 Ted Williams said, “The other day Willie Mays hit his 522nd home run. He has gone past me, and he’s pushing, and I say to him, ‘Go get ‘em, Willie.’ Baseball gives every American boy a change to excel. This is the nature of man and the name of the game. I hope that someday Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of great Negro players who are not here only because they weren’t given the chance.”
That “someday” came in 1971 when the Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues elected Satchel to the Hall of Fame. In his classic induction speech the old warrior of countless ball games said, “Today baseball had turned Satchel Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal.” He reminded everyone by adding, “There are many Satches and many Joshes…We had men by the hundreds who could have made it to the major leagues.” Satch told the people at the ceremony, “I am the proudest man on the face of the earth today.” He looked at Bill Veeck who had taken much heat after signing the forty-plus Paige in 1948, “And I finally got you off the hook.” (Note: Josh Gibson was inducted the Hall of Fame the next year.)
At first Satch was to be put into a “special wing” for the Negro League players, but after many protests baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn changed the plan and put the new member in the same section with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Walter Johnson, and…Jackie Robinson. Paige is one of the few pitchers in Cooperstown’s hallowed hall with a losing record Major League, 28-31, but is really there because of his long unbelievable years of play in the Negro Leagues. Following Satch and Josh came Joe Williams, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, Rube Foster, and Buck Leonard among others. Leonard spoke of his years as a black ballplayer, “We were not disorganized, just unrecognized.”
Satch told his life story in a 1967 autobiography called Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, and in 1981 actor Lou Gossett, Jr. portrayed Satchel’s life in a television movie titled Don’t Look Back. By 1982 the man who dazzled so many people with pinpoint pitching accuracy was dying of emphysema and a bad heart. The Kansas City parks and recreation people renovated an old ballpark and called it the Leroy Satchel Paige Stadium. Satch was there in a wheelchair when the park was dedicated on June 5th. He said, “This is the happiest day of my life. Nobody on earth could feel as good as I do now.” Satch threw out the traditional first ball. It was his last. Satch died three days later.
All stories have a beginning and an ending. The saga of Satchel Paige began in the early 1900’s; his formative years were spent in a school for social misfits where he found the game of baseball; and spent much of his life in many ballparks with many teams in many states and countries. His story ends in the Forest City Cemetery in Kansas City where he rests with his wife Lahoma who died in 1986. The inscription on his memorial ends with “And so Leroy became Satchel, and Satchel became legend.”
The world of baseball is a better place because of Leroy Satchel Paige whose pitching prawns and heroics entertained thousands for half a century, and his cracker-barrel philosophy became almost as famous as that supersonic fastball that left the his hand as a baseball and arrived over the plate like a pea. Jimmie Crutchfield, a teammate of Satch from the Negro Leagues, once said of his friend, “When Satchel got to that ballpark, it was like the sun just came out.”
Near the end Satch summed up his long and captivating life when he pointed to his face and said, “We seen some sights, it and I.” Few have seen as much. When asked about his career, Satch concluded, “Man, the past is a long and twisty road.”
Next week: Some wise and witty words from Professor Paige
Satch
The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Part 7
Satchel Paige is a folk hero from the Negro Leagues and barnstorming days, a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, one of the great pitchers of all time, and a genius with the English language. His philosophy on life rivals any others who may have many university degrees behind their names. The man who thought he might pitch forever was “tutored by life”, not in a campus classroom, and so here are some profound “Satchelisms” as set forth by the eminent Professor Leroy Paige:
---“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” (Often quoted.)
---“Age is a question of mind over matter. It you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” (Often quoted.)
---“Baseball is too much a business to them now. I loved baseball. I ate and slept it. But now the players, instead of picking up the sports page, pick up the Wall Street Journal. It’s different.” (Said at the time of his Hall of Fame induction, August 9, 1971.)
---“I don’t generally like running. I believe in training by rising gently up and down the bench.” (Quoted by George Plimpton in Out of My League.)
---“I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain’t been seen by this generation.” (Quoted in the Washington Post, June 10, 1982.)
---“Ol’ Satch threw a lot of things, but my natural stuff was always good enough. I didn’t need any spit to help out.” (From his book, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever)
---“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” (Usual response to question on his actual age.)
---“I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it a thousand times, I’m 44 years old.” (Usual response to question on his actual age.)
---“I’m just aged.” (Quoted by the San Francisco News in 1953 when asked about his age.)
---“Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.” (Advice to young pitchers.)
---Satchel’s formula on keeping young:
1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. (These rules on life first
appeared in Collier’s on June 13, 1953. For many years Satch gave out personal cards with these guidelines for living on the back.)
---“Well, if there ain’t been no color line in the game, I might have made more money and got in trouble with Sam (Uncle Sam, the government).” (Quoted in The Sporting News , 1964.)
---“They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw…I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice.” (From his obituary in The Sporting News. Satch died on June 8, 1982. Note: Satchel always had a lot to say, but seldom commented on the fact that he was not allowed to play in the Major Leagues during much of his playing years. Here are some of them.)
---“But signing Jackie (Robinson) like they did still hurt me deep down. I’d been the guy who’d started all that big talk about letting us in the big time. I’d been the one who’d opened up the major league parks to the colored teams. I’d been the one who the white boys wanted to barnstorm against. I’d been the one who everybody’d said should be in the majors. But Jackie’d been the first one signed by the white boys and he’d probably be the first in the majors.” (From Satchel’s book Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever)
---Some of his thoughts on the game as reported in a 1981 AP story: “Millionaires took over, and changed the game completely…I call this night baseball heaven, playing when it’s cool. Guys now don’t know how it was. Now it’s like falling into a mint of money…Coaches try to change motion and batting stances of young players. They should leave ‘em alone…Pitchers today have arm trouble because they sit on the bench and don’t work enough…Pete Rose is the toughest hitter in the game today. I love him; he plays hard, like I did when I pitched.”
---“Listen, if I had to do it all over again, I would. I had more fun and seen more places with less money that if I was a Rockefeller.” (Quoted near the time of his death.)