AceHistoryDesk – Today in History – Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, perhaps baseball’s most outstanding pitcher ever, was born on July 7, ca. 1906, in Mobile, Alabama. Paige earned his nickname, Satchel, as a young boy carrying bags at railroad stations for passengers. After being convicted of petty theft, he was placed in a black reform school where he began refining his baseball skills. Five years later, the lean, long-armed Paige began pitching professionally for several teams in the Negro Southern Association, the Negro American League, and the Negro National League.

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Jul.07: 2024: History Today News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

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Satchel Paige

In the late Thirties, any Negro League club could have beaten any white major league team. The best team in the world was the New York Yankees then, and if we played them with the Crawfords or Grays, they’d have had to go like hell to beat us.

Satchel Paige. In When the Game was Black and White: the Illustrated History of the Negro Leagues, by Bruce Chadwick. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1992), 84.normal

Paige’s pitching prowess drew huge crowds. A natural showman, Paige enjoyed driving from game to game in his Cadillac convertible. He also owned a bus and several airplanes with Satchel Paige’s All-Stars written on the side.

Barred from the major leagues because of his race, Paige showcased his skills by barnstorming across the country, pitching for any team willing to meet his price, and proving his mettle in organised exhibition games against the best players of the day. The exhibition games were top-rated and provided one of the few opportunities for players in the U.S. to compete in integrated games:

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I liked playing against Negro League teams, but I loved barnstorming. It gave us a chance to play everybody and go everywhere and let millions of people see what we could do. I just loved it. I’d have played every day of the year if I could.

Satchel Paige. In When the Game was Black and White: the Illustrated History of the Negro Leagues by Bruce Chadwick. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1992), 69.normal

Paige’s barnstorming years they marked the pinnacle of his pitching career. He and Dizzy Dean, another legendary Hall of Fame pitcher, formed two barnstorming teams—one white and one black—which moved across the country in 1932.

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His feats in such games became part of baseball mythology. Many a fan recounts a story about a game in which Paige intentionally walked the bases loaded with major leaguers, told his fielders to sit down, and then struck out the side.

Rob Ruck, “Paige, Satchel.” In African American Lives. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks, editors. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2004) 648.normal

In 1934, Paige beat Dean in four of six exhibition games while Dean was at the height of his career. To learn more about the barnstorming days, view the webcast featuring Timothy Gay discussing his 2010 book, Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson.

Many black players went to the Caribbean and Latin America, where the teams all were integrated. Paige pitched for several Latin American teams during the winters, including, in 1937, one in the Dominican Republic organized by dictator Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo hired some of the best players money could buy, including Paige, in order to win. His Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo team won the 1937 Dominican baseball championship in the last inning. When Paige and his Trujillo team-mates returned to the states, they were banned from the Negro National League for the remainder of the 1937 season. In response, they formed their own well-received touring team for the duration of the ban.

Between 1939 and 1942, Paige’s pitching took the Kansas City Monarchs to four consecutive Negro American League Pennants and another pennant in 1946. On July 19, 1948, Paige followed former Kansas City Monarchs teammate Jackie Robinson into the major leagues when he signed with Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians, becoming the American League’s oldest rookie at age forty-two. Robinson broke the colour line in 1947, debuting for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

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Paige pitched for three American League teams: the Cleveland Indians (1948-1949), the St. Louis Browns (1951-1953) and the Kansas City Athletics (1965). At fifty-nine years old in 1965, he was the oldest player in the Major Leagues. The right-hander was also black baseball’s best-known performer, with a career that spanned half a century. By combining showmanship with talent, he became a baseball legend. In 1971, he was the first Negro League player elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Paige died in 1982.

“To tell you the truth,” Paige said in 1981, “all over Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, South America, everywhere I played, I had bouquets on my shoulder… I just could pitch. The Master just give me an arm… You couldn’t hardly beat me.”

Rob Ruck, “Paige, Satchel.” In African American Lives. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks, editors. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2004) 648.normal

Learn More

• Learn more about Satchel Paige in the following posts from the Library’s blogs:
  • Celebrating the Ageless Satchel Paige from the Picture This blog.
  • Negro Leagues Baseball Trivia from the Headlines & Heroes blog.
• See Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, particularly the section titled 1900s-1930s, to learn more about the historical context of Paige’s career.
• To see earlier images of baseball players explore the collection Baseball Cards.
• Search for Negro National League to find newspaper accounts of the first few years of Negro League Baseball in Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Search on other team and player names to find additional newspaper accounts about the sport.
• To learn about the rules and equipment of the game from days gone by, check out The Spalding Base Ball Guides, 1889 to 1939.
• Explore the online research guide Baseball Resources at the Library of Congress to find additional baseball resources at the Library of Congress, online and in print.
• Baseball Americana is an exhibition that covers all aspects of the game, from the early history to the latest science of developing a winning strategy.
• See the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (which includes a feature on Satchel Paige) to learn more about the league that provided minority baseball players an opportunity to play professionally in the days before the Major Leagues broke the color line.
• Visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame to find information about Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean, Bill Veeck Jr., and other immortals of the game enshrined at Cooperstown.
• The Society for American Baseball Research presents a brief biography of Satchel Paige that includes a list of references on their website.

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