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When I was around 13, I saw Soul of the Game and was just old enough to understand that something wasn’t right. Delroy Lindo and his performance as Satchel Paige especially stuck with me as a man who was just plain wronged. Now I’m in my 40s and still trying to figure out how to write about things like Juneteenth and the Negro Leagues without either grandstanding or making light of anything. I figure the best way is to go back to Paige and why he was one of the most interesting players you’ll ever hear about.

Life

There’s no better place to begin the legend of Leroy Paige than with him earning his nickname while working as a porter in a train station in Mobile, Alabama, literally moving satchels. Of course it could have been for stealing a satchel too, but there in lies the best part of Satchel Paige. He made it a point to tell every story with mystery and confusion. Hell, we can even go back earlier to when he was born. Was it in 1908? Maybe it was 1899? He told everyone a different year. It wasn’t until he made it to the Majors with Cleveland that owner Bill Veeck literally went to Mobile and the Health Department to find his birth certificate to see he was born July 7, 1906.

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In a situation straight out of a movie, at 12 years old Paige was sentenced to 6 years at a reform school for skipping school and petty theft. In one version, you see the absurdity of the times sentencing a working child to what was essentially jail for a crazy long time and little reason while taking him away from his family. In the Disney version, you see a wayward child taken under the wing of a man named Reverend Moses Davis who taught Paige how to play baseball and discovering his golden arm. Paige himself didn’t look bad on the situation as a negative at least publicly, crediting the experience is making a man out of him.

Career

Upon his release, Paige started in the semi pro baseball circuit in Mobile and eventually the Negro Leagues. Still in the Disney version, we see that his natural arm talent allowed Paige to be a show all to himself. He was known for outrageous moves on the mound like an exaggerated windmill windup, telling hitters what was coming, making his outfielders abandon their positions, and even naming his pitches. There was the Bat Dodger, the Trouble Ball, the Thoughtful Stuff, the Long Tom, the Jump Ball, the Bee-Ball (which he claimed buzzed), the Midnight Creeper, the Wobbly Ball, the Whipsy-Dipsy-Do, and the Hesitation Pitch which was eventually banned by MLB because he would basically stall his delivery right in the middle of his pitch to throw the hitter off balance. The most ridiculous story I heard was purposely loading the bases to face Josh Gibson, basically the 2001 Barry Bonds of his day. Paige struck him out on 3 pitches. Is that how it happened? No one knows because Paige was the one who told the story. Baseball is the perfect place for an unreliable narrator.

In the gritty version of the tale, Paige would travel anywhere he could to play and make money. He rode trains, slept in his car, and pitched damn near every day on different barnstorming tours and in different independent leagues and countries when he wasn’t pitching for basically all the Negro League teams at one time or another. He even once played as a ringer for the dictator of the Dominican Republic whose guards had guns at the ready in the stands. This was the 1930s and 40s. Despite having all the talent as someone like Bob Feller in Cleveland, he wasn’t allowed to play in Major League Baseball.

As the climate of the times gradually changed and the legends of the Negro Leagues were getting harder and harder for the public at large to ignore, the color line was about to be broken and Paige was one of the obvious choices to be the man to do it…until he wasn’t. When Jackie Robinson first suited up for the Dodgers on April 15th, 1947, he was 28 years old. Paige was already almost 41. He had been toiling for over 20 years and had to figure if he wasn’t the first, he might not ever get the call at all.

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Over a year later, Paige heard from Bill Veeck and was asked to try out for the Cleveland Indians. Veeck gave him a contract for $40,000¹ on the spot and Paige was to make his debut just two days later. Over 70,000 people showed up. He didn’t start, but rather came in as a reliever in the 4th inning. At 42 years old, he was the oldest man to EVER make his debut. Paige eventually became a starter that season and pitched to a 2.48 ERA and yes, he was a part of Cleveland’s last World Series winning team that season.

That’s probably where the Disney version ends. Paige was released by Cleveland after the following season when Veeck was forced to sell the team. No other team picked up the 43 year old and he went back to barnstorming to earn a living. It wasn’t until Veeck came back to baseball, this time with the St. Louis Browns that Paige was signed back to the Majors. He lasted a few more years made two All Star teams but again left when Veeck left, this time at age 46. He continued to mull around baseball in the minors and independent leagues until Charlie O. Finley called in 1965 for a bit of a promotional game for the Athletics. At 56 years old, Paige pitched 3 innings of shut out baseball.

Satchel Paige was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971. He passed away in 1975 after living one hell of a life.

Friday Fun: Baseball Quotes

Quotes

You can’t write about Satchel Paige without giving some of his best quotes.

“You might say I traded 5 years of freedom to learn how to pitch.” – Paige on his time in reform school

“Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

“I never rush myself. See, they can’t start the game without me.”

“I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger. Man’s got to do what he’s got to do.”

“My pitching philosophy is simple – keep the ball way from the bat.”

“One time he (Cool Papa Bell) hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second.”

“Of course the stories about Satchel (Paige) are legendary and some of them are even true.” – Buck O’Neil

“Don’t look back, someone might be gaining on you.” – Paige’s words to live by

I don’t think you can do a ballplayer like Satchel Paige justice in just about 1000 words, so I encourage everyone to read some great books about him like Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend and Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever by Paige himself

Quotes: Baseball Almanac

More Info: History Channel

1. This was in July, so there were only 3 months left in the season. For some context on the type of deal this was, the average MLB salary at the time was around $13k for the whole season with the highest paid making just over $100k ↩︎