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Satchel Paige

A Wiley Wit & a Wicked Right Arm

Hordes of people paid money to watch Satchel Paige pitch a baseball—and a lot of them weren't particularly baseball fans. Some didn't know who was playing. They didn't care. They paid to see Satchel Paige. Regardless of their level of interest in the game, they got their money's worth of entertainment by the time they exited the stadium. In the process, they just so happened to witness one of the most talented hurlers in the sport's history.

And one of the most enduring. Born in Mobile, AL, in 1906 (possibly, at any rate; his age always was debated), Leroy Robert Paige played baseball basically nonstop, year-round, from the late 1920s until 1948. It was in that year, when Paige was well beyond most professional athletes' retirement age, that the Cleveland Indians gave the black wizard his first contract in the previously segregated major leagues. By his own estimate, he'd already pitched in more than 2,000 ballgames (about 100 a year) in the Negro Southern Association and the Negro National League, and with touring exhibition teams in the off seasons. During one incredible month in 1935, he was the starting pitcher in no fewer than 29 games, a feat no mound star today would attempt. In double-headers, he often pitched in both games.

Paige—nicknamed "Satchel" at age 7 because of his industriousness as a baggage boy at the Mobile train station—threw hard and frequently bested the best. He chalked up a 23-game winning streak in 1933 that included 62 consecutive blank-score innings. Flamboyantly confident, he was known to send his infield players to the dug-out when star batters stepped to the plate to confront him. "Throw strikes," he quipped to aspiring young pitchers. "Home plate don't move." But notwithstanding his down-the-throat, trusty right arm, he insisted on making the game fun. He developed a bizarre catalog of names for his arsenal of pitches. One of the wackiest was his "two-hump blooper." Others included the "hesitation pitch" and a version of the fastball he dubbed the "Long Tom." Regardless of the translations, they stumped many a hitter. No less an authority than Joe DiMaggio lauded Paige as "the best and fastest pitcher I've ever faced."

Off the field, he was a darling of the media. His humorous quotations spanned a range of topics. On theology: "Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines." On competition: "Don't look back; something might be gaining on you." On aging: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" And on how to pitch a baseball: "You gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat."

Paige compiled only an average win-loss record in the majors, but he was always a force to be reckoned with. During his brief career with the Indians, he helped his team to a pennant claim and, in one game that set a nighttime attendance record (78,000-plus), held the Chicago White Sox scoreless. He went on to play for St. Louis before retiring in 1953. In 1965 (approaching his 60th birthday!) he returned to the professional mound to pitch three scoreless innings for Kansas City against the Boston Red Sox. It made him almost certainly (again, his actual age was in question) the oldest man ever to play in a major league baseball game.

In 1971, Satchel Paige became the first player from the former Negro leagues elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in Kansas City in 1982.

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