Tori Sheffer

Number One: Satchel Paige

By Tori Sheffer

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige was born on July 7th, 1906 supposedly; however, there are conflicting dates as Satchel himself always wanted to leave a little about himself up to mystery. One of the best pitchers in all of baseball history, yet not many know much more about this titan other than the fact that he was a pitcher for the Kansas City Monarchs who made his MLB debut with the Indians in 1948; however, there’s much more about Satch than meets the eye. Sure, his career stat line can speak for itself, especially now that players from the Negro Leagues have been integrated into all MLB records; however, much like all players, both historic and present, but especially players from the past, it’s sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction.

Right from birth, young Leroy was already setting the world ablaze. Rumor has it that when he was born to his mother, Ms. Lula Paige, he was born with size 14 feet, a torso that already allowed him to sprout up like the mighty oak tree he is so often compared to when standing on the mound. Lula Paige, allegedly, sat there holding her bundle of joy when she noticed his little fist curled up, shaped perfectly to hold a baseball. While the stories surrounding his birth are just myths, there are many elements of Paige’s life that most have to see or hear to believe.

At a young age, both Leroy and his mother quickly recognized the natural gift he had for throwing. Whenever his mom needed a plump chicken for dinner, she would send Leroy out with some rocks and his golden arm, because she knew it was equally as strong as a rifle, and young Leroy would never miss. By age 10, he spent all his free time throwing. He practiced so much that when he took the mound for the first time, as a member of the W.H. Council school team in his home city of Mobile, Alabama, he threw a shutout. From there, his legacy began; people would constantly want to see him play, and “That Paige boy from the Southside” was consistently being discussed by fans all across the county. However, Paige didn’t have the luxuries that all kids his age had; he consistently had one thing on his mind: money. Being the 7th of 12 children in the Paige family, he was no stranger to finding unconventional ways to make ends meet. Modestly, as most children often do, he would collect bottles; however, when he would turn them in, his payout would only result in pennies. He needed to venture out a little further than the city limits to see where the real money was made: at the Depot. Very quickly, after he started toting bags for passengers returning to Mobile from all over the country, he watched his pennies grow into larger sums of change. He would volunteer his strength and speed to create a pseudo-bellhop service, collecting passengers’ bags, and in return, receiving dimes for tips.

As a testament to his confidence and strength, when he began carrying about a half dozen satchels draped over his shoulders, his friends told him that he resembled a Satchel Tree, and from there, the name just seemed to stick. If it weren’t for his noble selflessness in trying to ensure his family had enough money for food to eat and clothes to wear, the great talent and household name of Satchel Paige wouldn’t exist. Trying all the ways he could earn a living modestly, as much as you can as a Black pre-teen in the segregated South, Satchel quickly had to turn to another art form in hopes it could help his family more than any of the odd jobs he took prior. Satchel began stealing, which, unfortunately, ended up catching up to him fairly quickly. Once sentenced, he was sent to the Mount Meigs Industrial School for Negro Children. Now, most would think that this sentence would affect him or his mental health negatively, but that’s just not how Satchel viewed the world, and he began to make lemonade out of the sour lemons that were his sentence for his petty crime. He was shocked to learn how much a hard day’s work resonated with him. He loved and appreciated all that Mount Meigs gave him: three meals a day, a pair of shoes, and the opportunity to continue playing baseball. If he were alive today, Satch would tell you himself this was where he truly learned how to pitch.

He knew how to throw, sure, but there was no control, no strategy; he would just throw with all his might, which worked when he was playing with his friends back home in Mobile. But he knew that playing with the boys at Mount Meigs would be different purely based on their equipment. They were playing with real wooden bats and leather balls, not just whatever they could get their hands on, and a rock wrapped up in a rag his mother was so quick to make for her boy any time he asked. It wasn’t until his coaches from Mount Meigs, Edward Byrd and Moses Davis, got ahold of him when Byrd taught him the fundamentals of the game itself, and Davis taught him the art of pitching that school reformed the boy who could not be tamed.

“You concentrate on baseball, and you might make something of yourself,” Davis said, and that is exactly what young Satch did. He spent six years at Mount Meigs with his mentors until he returned home to Mobile, Alabama, in 1923. As soon as he returned, he knew that he needed to immediately reenter the workforce; however, there weren’t many career paths available to Black individuals in the segregated South, and the few there were had absolutely no interest to Satchel, so words his coach told him at Mount Meigs rang in his head and he sought to make a career out of the one thing that had carried with him through all avenues of his life: baseball. His brother, Wilson “Paddlefoot” Paige, played semi-pro ball for the Mobile Tigers, where he convinced his coach to allow his brother Satchel to try out for their team. Ten pitches, ten strikes later, the Mobile Tigers found their newest starting pitcher in the summer of 1924.

Thanks to the success of the “Storylines” feature of MLB the Show 23, some who played through Satchel’s story know of his unique arsenal of pitches: most notably his “Be Ball” that would “Be wherever he wanted it to be” and would “wiggle like a worm.” In addition to that, he had his magic Slow Ball, the Trouble Ball which would wreak havoc on all batters standing in the box, and a personal favorite, “Long Tom,” which was his fastball.

“I got bloopers, loopers, and droopers,” he explained. “I got a jump ball, a be ball, a screwball, a wobbly ball, a whipsy-dipsy-do, a hurry-up ball, a nothin’ ball, and a bat dodger,” he once said. Satch took pride in his pitches, treating them all as his children. He would play, get tips and notes from coaches or other players, practice with the suggestions given, then he’d put his own Satchel spin on it. In addition to his personalized pitches, he had a windup and delivery no one had ever seen before. Tall and firm, just like a Redwood or Oak Tree, he would tower over the mound with the longest torso batters would question how he could throw as accurately as he did. His feet were equally as long as his torso, rumor would say when he would kick his leg up during his delivery, his foot would block out the sun which, once Satch’s leg was reacquainted with the ground, the sun would shine through once more re-blinding the batter who never had a chance at one of Satchel’s pitches anyway. His wingspan extended so wide it would put the Big Unit’s to shame. He would move them, bend them, and contort them every which way so the batter wouldn’t know where the release of the pitch was even coming from. Lastly, and most famously, there was the classic Satchel smile he would flash just as he was releasing the ball from his hand; the grin always seemed to say “Yeah, just try making contact with that.”

If a batter blinked at the wrong time, they could miss their at-bat entirely, with Satch’s fastest “Long Tom” clocking in at 105 mph. Not only did Satchel develop talent throughout his youth, but he also gained much confidence with the continued success he saw through his hard work. Fans of all racial and socio-economic backgrounds would travel from near and far to watch Satchel pitch. They would come from all over in hopes of seeing how many strikeouts he could rack up in a given game in addition to his fast-talking and slow walking; most famously being on record saying, “A man’s gotta go slow to go long and far.” One of his most notable moments as a member of the Tigers was right around age 19 when he had the bases loaded towards the end of a game and he called out to his outfielders saying, “Why don’t y’all take a seat; [I] won’t be needing you on this one!” He didn’t need them, not at all. He managed to get the remaining two outs and the win for that game. Moments like that were what had audiences enamored by the 6’3 righty known as “Satchel.”

Around the same time that his confidence around the game skyrocketed, he became the talk of the Mobile baseball scene. Having a base of fans around him, Satch then began to taste the sweet sensation of validation through the crowds’ cheers that were just for him. It only took one year in the semi-pro league before he got the call-up to the Negro League, where he began his career with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts (then known as the Chattanooga White Sox) in 1926 when they bought out his contract from the Tigers. Players of the Negro Leagues were widely mistreated across the country in terms of a lack of transportation, being unable to be served in restaurants (despite their fame as athletes), and lodging, usually being denied the ability to stay in different hotels and having to sleep in their rundown buses or on the baseball fields in which they would play on the following day. While the conditions for players were just terrible, they continued to play and make names for themselves because of their mutual love of the game. Much like the other greats of the Negro League, Satchel himself insisted on playing year-round. Their season is much longer than the traditional MLB season we have come to know presently, playing more than 162 games; they would play as long as the weather would hold out, and then most players would go and play overseas once the season in the US would conclude. That kind of grit and yearly determination is what makes Satchel Paige still recognizable as a household name today, synonymous with the Negro Leagues itself. The Negro League was more than a vessel in which Black Americans could play baseball since they weren’t able to play alongside their white counterparts in the MLB; it was a testament to the determination the individuals within the league carried with them in hopes of one day making the dreams of being professional athletes just the slightest bit easier for the next group of phenomenal Black men that would grace the game, changing baseball at large forever.

As mentioned before, the life of a ballplayer is ongoing, and as a traveling man, Satchel didn’t mind the nomadic life of a man dedicating his life to the game, usually skipping the bus ride completely as he would drive himself on a timeline only he knew. From the Chattanooga White Sox, Satchel then went on to play for the Birmingham Black Barons, then to Tennessee where he played for the Nashville Elite Giants, then to Pennsylvania where he played alongside his long-time friend, and one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, Josh Gibson for the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1932-1936. During his tenure with the Crawfords, he and Gibson were the marketing duo of a lifetime. “Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige: the Greatest Battery in Baseball,” posters would read, “Gibson guaranteed to hit at least two home runs, and Paige sure to strike out the first nine batters!” He and Gibson then parted ways once Satchel moved over to the Kansas City Monarchs, but they would meet up years later, just playing against one another, not united. After years on the road, and much success within the league, when Satch was in his mid-thirties, he started to long for a life with a little more stability. Something that he found in the tender heart and warm smile of Miss Lahoma Brown and the family and home they went on to build together, thus starting Satch’s second career as a loving husband and father. In typical Satchel fashion; however, he could not be domesticated for long as it was a little over a year before Satchel would hit the road again with his teammates from the Kansas City Monarchs in 1940.

Just two years later, Satchel and his former teammate, Josh Gibson, would finally get to settle the question they would jest with one another when they were teammates in their late 20s, “Who truly is the best player in the Negro League?” The date was September 10th, 1942, and Satchel’s Monarchs were facing off against Gibson’s Homestead Grays in the Negro League World Series. With only one out and one runner on, Satchel, in typical Satchel fashion, decided to walk the next two batters to load up the bases for his friend and former teammate, “The Black Babe Ruth,” Josh Gibson. The questions and jokes they used to ask and make to one another continuously rang in his head and heart. With his reputation on the line and a ball in hand, Satchel encountered a brief exchange with Gibson, telling him that their next at-bat was going to determine “what’s what.”

With his infamous grin, standing proudly atop the mound, he said, “I’m gonna throw a fastball, a little high.” It came and went: strike one. Gibson tightened his grip on the bat and stared directly in the direction of Satchel’s eyes; however, Satch didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, he was following some of the words Moses Davis told him, staring at Gibson’s knees.

“Any weakness a batter has, you can spot in his knees,” Davis said. Jesting at Gibson again, Satchel decided to spoil his plans for his second pitch.

“This next one is gonna be a little faster, about belt high,” he said. Strike two. Barely able to breathe, Satchel called out to him one last time, giving one last jest to his former Pittsburgh teammate.

“Now I got you 0-2,” he said, “I’m supposed to knock you down, but instead, I’m gonna throw a pea at your knee.” He did, and the bat never even left Gibson’s shoulder. An overdue exasperated breath came from Satchel as the moment was finally over. He did exactly what he wanted to do, proved he was the best against the best bat in the Negro League. “No one can hit Satchel’s fastball,” he said, “And no one ever will.”

While there has always been structure to the game of baseball, Satchel always envisioned it as a way for the Major League to keep him from getting the equal treatment he so deserved. Major League Baseball players would travel to see him pitch, and when the games they saw would conclude, Satch would often hear sentiments along the lines of, “You know our team could use you…if only you were white.” Satchel would be sick to his stomach when hearing words like that, and the only cure he knew would heal all ailments of blatant racism was one that had been with him all along: pitching. He would go on to pitch with the Monarchs, among other teams, for six more years until another historic player known by the name of Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. On July 7th, 1948, his 42nd birthday, the Cleveland Guardians, at that time Indians, gave him the gift he had waited for his entire life: a spot on a Major League roster. He accepted but quickly learned that MLB had several set rules in place, rules that he didn’t want to nor ever had to think about previously throughout his professional career. He was comfortable with the rules, or lack thereof, that the Negro Leagues offered him, and he began to wonder if the grass was greener on his home field in Kansas City than either League Park II or Cleveland Stadium. He made the best of his time in the Majors, notably becoming the first Black person to pitch in the World Series during Game 2 of the 1948 Fall Classic, in addition to being named Sporting News Magazine’s Rookie of the Year.

Pitching was a gift that Satchel was born with, something he knew as second nature as breathing. After a few seasons with the Indians, the St. Louis Browns, and the Kansas City Athletics, Satch decided to return to barnstorming, the minor leagues, and international ball. He returned to the Majors at the age of 59 in a one-game stint with the then Kansas City Athletics on Sept. 25, 1965. He pitched three shutout innings, then decided to retire in 1966.

“Age is a question of mind over matter,” Paige said. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” While he did retire due to complications from aging, his disregard for the rules made his few seasons in the Majors somewhat challenging to navigate. Despite his best pitching years being behind him, fans and future players could marvel at the tall terror called “Satchel” for just the price of a ticket, which at its most expensive was $6, which today equates to a little more than $76. Even when the cheers from the masses began to fade, Satchel’s love of the game never did. Despite his Major League career being over, he would still pitch just about anywhere for any team that would have him and his “satchel” of pitches.

He finished his career with a record of 124-82, 1501 strikeouts, a 2.73 ERA, a WHIP of 1.101, and a WAR of 46.9, in addition to two All-Star Game selections. While all the accolades and impressive numbers in his stat line are accomplishments, Satchel’s career is much more than just numbers. One of the most beautifully humbling moments came in 1971 when the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, welcomed him as the first-ever Black player inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average,” he used to say, “But there ain’t no man got to be common,” is a quote that Satchel made while playing, which firmly stood as his mantra throughout his entire career. While his plaque in Cooperstown lists all his teams, his seasons in the Negro League will reign supreme, and he will forever be synonymously tied with both his beloved Kansas City Monarchs and the League at large, proving that while his time in the majors might not have been as long as desired, his legacy will never be forgotten.