Satchel

I always try to read one book about baseball a year; this year it's the fascinating story of Satchel Paige, the great pitcher of the Negro Leagues who was cursed by time to just miss a chance to pitch in his prime in the Major Leagues, but nonetheless has become an American legend.

Written by Larry Tye, the book is an excellent study of both Paige, the Negro Leagues, and Jim Crow America. Unlike too many baseball books, Tye writes straightforwardly, without the flourishes that were common in vintage sports reporting. He writes about the subject objectively, and not in breathless prose, taking a stand-back approach on the many grandiose claims that Paige made about his career. Some of them, it turns out, may be true--he certainly won far more games than Cy Young, and had far more strikeouts than Nolan Ryan.

Paige, who was born Leroy Robert Page in Mobile, Alabama in 1906 (his birth date was much speculated on), spent his early years in a reform school, and then joined the Negro Leagues in the 1920s. He was one of the dominant pitchers in those leagues for twenty years, but there was little record-keeping, and with a sport like baseball, which is dominated by numbers, Paige's gifts have relied on word-of-mouth. From first-hand accounts it is known that he had a blazing fastball and pinpoint control, and also pitched all-year round. He also jumped teams often--it is said over his career he played for 250 different teams, including barnstorming teams, and teams in places as far flung as South America, North Dakota, California, Puerto Rico and Alaska. He even played for a Jewish House of David team.

Through it all Paige was a big gate attraction. He was an original, a bit of combination of Muhammad Ali and Yogi Berra (once asked if he could pitch fast consistently, he answered, "No, I can do it all the time.") He also loved the finer things, like cars, clothes, and shotguns. He was married three times, with two of his wives overlapping.

At the height of his fame, Paige was earning $40,000 a year, the same that Joe DiMaggio was earning. Of course, Paige had to earn that playing all year-round, and in places where it may be hard for him to find a restaurant or hotel that would serve him. When the color barrier was broken, it was thought Paige might be the first to do so, but Jackie Robinson, a younger and blander man, was chosen instead. Tye reports that though Paige was outwardly supportive of Robinson, privately he and many other Negro League stars were resentful, as Robinson was not close to being the best Negro player. Paige got his chance in 1948, setting a record as the oldest rookie, when Bill Veeck signed him to the Cleveland Indians. He pitched in relief and had a few starts, including two consecutive shutouts, and packed houses. That year he was the first black hurler to pitch in a World Series.

Paige continued to pitch well into his fifties. Veeck was his primary benefactor, bringing him to the St. Louis Browns and then the minor league Miami Marlins. Another owner who appreciated publicity, Charlie Finley, hired Paige in 1965, when he was 59. He pitched three shutout innings for the Kansas City Royals, setting a record for the oldest player even in the majors, a record unlikely to be broken, unless it's by Jamie Moyer.

In 1971 Paige became the first player who primarily played in the Negro Leagues to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but at first, incredibly, he and other Negro Leaguers were going to be put in a different category. Tye doesn't hide his indignance that after all these years the Hall was going to engage in "separate but equal," which the courts had ruled unconstitutional a generation earlier. Finally sanity prevailed, and Paige's plaque hangs right alongside the white players, who had the chances he never did.