Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
A right-handed pitcher, Paige first played for the semi-professional Mobile Tigers from 1924 to 1926. He began his professional baseball career in 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League and became one of the most famous and successful players from the Negro leagues. On town tours across the United States, Paige would sometimes have his infielders sit down behind him and then routinely strike out the side..Kelley, James. Baseball. New York: Shoreline Publishing Group, 2000. pp. 44–45. Print.
At age 42 in 1948, Paige made his MLB debut for the Cleveland Indians, making him the oldest debutant in the history of professional baseball (or any professional sport). Additionally, Paige was 59 years old when he played his last major league game, which is also a record in any professional sport. Paige was the first black pitcher to play in the American League and was the seventh black player to play in Major League Baseball. In 1948, Paige became the first player who had played in the Negro leagues to pitch in the World Series; the Indians won the Series that year. He played with the St. Louis Browns from 1951 to 1953, representing the team in the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953. He played his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League, two weeks shy of 60.Tye 2009, pp. 24–29, 272. In 1971, Paige became the first electee of the Negro League Committee to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; he holds the record with Hoyt Wilhelm and Goose Gossage for the most Major League franchises played for (9) by a Hall-of-Fame pitcher.National Baseball Hall of Fame, Satchel Paige Retrieved April 16, 2015
Date of birth While Satchel Paige was playing baseball, many ages and birthdates were reported, ranging from 1899 to 1908. Paige himself was the source of many of these dates. His actual birthdate, July 7, 1906, was determined in 1948 when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck traveled to Mobile, Alabama, and accompanied Paige's family to the County Health Department to obtain his birth certificate.Tye 2009, pp. viii–x. Paige's birth certificate is displayed in his autobiography.Paige and Lipman 1993, opposite p. 145.
In 1959, Paige's mother told a reporter that he was 55 rather than 53, saying she knew this because she wrote it down in her Bible. Paige wrote in his autobiography, "Seems like Mom's Bible would know, but she ain't ever shown me the Bible. Anyway, she was in her nineties when she told the reporter that, and sometimes she tended to forget things."Paige and Lipman 1993, p. 14.
Early life Paige was born Leroy Robert Page to John Page, a gardener, and Lula Page (née Coleman), a domestic worker, in a section of Mobile, Alabama, known as Down the Bay.Tye 2009, pp. 3–4, 6. Lula and her children changed the spelling of their name from Page to Paige in the mid-1920s, just before the start of Satchel's baseball career. Lula said, "Page looked too much like a page in a book," whereas Paige explained, "My folks started out by spelling their name 'Page' and later stuck in the 'i' to make themselves sound more high-tone." The introduction of the new spelling coincided with the death of Paige's father, and may have suggested a desire for a new start.Paige and Lipman 1993, p. 14; Tye 2009, pp. 10, 22–23.
According to Paige, his nickname originated from childhood work toting bags at the train station. He said he was not making enough money at a dime a bag, so he used a pole and rope to build a contraption that allowed him to cart up to four bags at once. Another kid supposedly yelled, "You look like a walking satchel tree."Paige and Lipman 1993, p. 17; Tye 2009, p. 9. A different story was told by boyhood friend and neighbor Wilber Hines, who said he gave Paige the nickname after he was caught trying to steal a bag.Tye 2009, p. 10. At the age of 10, Paige was playing "top ball," which was what got him into baseball. "Top ball" was a kids' game that used sticks and bottle caps instead of baseballs and bats to play a variation of the diamond sport.Tye 2009, p. 8. Satchel's mother, Lula, would even comment on how Paige would rather "play baseball than eat. It was always baseball, baseball."
On July 24, 1918, just seventeen days after his 12th birthday, Paige was sentenced to six years—or until his 18th birthday, whichever came first—at the Alabama Reform School for Juvenile Negro Law-Breakers in Mount Meigs, Alabama, owing to his truancy in school along with his tendency to steal.
The person who taught Paige to pitch while in reform school was the Reverend Moses Davis. It was Davis, who was also a trustee of the school, who devoted the long hours coaching the boys in baseball, and it was he who struck the deal with the sporting-goods store in Montgomery to secure the team's first uniforms. Davis was African American, as was the entire teaching staff at Mount Meigs, including the school's founder, Cornelia Bowen, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute.Spivey, Donald, "If You Were Only White": The Life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige (University of Missouri Press, 2012), 14–17 Paige was released from the institution in December 1923, seven months short of his 18th birthday. He summed up his years of incarceration: "I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch. At least I started my real learning on the Mount. They were not wasted years at all. It made a real man out of me."Paige, Maybe I'll Pitch Forever, 26; This Is Your Life, Leroy "Satchel" Paige (Ralph Edwards Productions, taped October 22, 1971, aired January 22, 1972)
After his release, Paige played for several Mobile semi-pro teams. He joined the semi-pro Mobile Tigers, for which his brother Wilson was already pitching.Paige and Lipman, pp. 28–32; Tye, pp. 21–22. He also pitched for a semi-pro team named the "Down the Bay Boys," and he recalled an incident in the ninth inning of a 1–0 ballgame when his teammates made three consecutive errors, loading the bases for the other team with two outs. Angry, Paige said he stomped around the mound, kicking up dirt. The fans started booing him, so he decided that "somebody was going to have to be showed up for that." He called in his outfielders and had them sit down in the infield. With the fans and his own teammates howling, Paige struck out the final batter, winning the game.Paige and Lipman 1993, pp. 34–35; Tye 2009, pp. 23–24.
Negro leagues
Chattanooga and Birmingham: 1926–1929 A former friend from Mobile, Alex Herman, was the player/manager for the Chattanooga White Sox of the minor Negro Southern League. In 1926 he discovered Paige and offered to pay him $250 per month, of which Paige would collect $50 with the rest going to his mother. He also agreed to pay Lula Paige a $200 advance, and she agreed to the contract.Tye 2009, p. 25.
The local newspapers—the Chattanooga News and Chattanooga Times—recognized from the beginning that Paige was special. In April 1926, shortly after his arrival, he recorded nine strikeouts over six innings against the Atlanta Black Crackers.Tye 2009, pp. 41–42. Partway through the 1927 season, Paige's contract was sold to the Birmingham Black Barons of the major Negro National League (NNL). According to Paige's first memoir, his contract was for $450 per month, but in his second he said it was for $275.Tye 2009, p. 42; Paige and Lipman 1993, pp. 45–46.
Pitching for the Black Barons, Paige threw hard but was wild and awkward. In his first big game in late June 1927, against the St. Louis Stars, Paige incited a brawl when his fastball hit the hand of St. Louis catcher Mitchell Murray. Murray then charged the mound and Paige raced for the dugout, but Murray flung his bat and struck Paige above the hip. The police were summoned, and the headline of the Birmingham Reporter proclaimed a "Near Riot."Tye 2009, p. 43. Paige improved and matured as a pitcher with help from two teammates, Sam Streeter and Harry Salmon, and his manager, Bill Gatewood.Tye 2009, pp. 44–45. He finished the 1927 season 7–1 with 69 strikeouts and 26 walks in 89 innings.Hogan 2006, pp. 406–407.
Over the next two seasons, Paige went 12–5 and 10–9 while recording 176 strikeouts in 1929. (Several sources credit his 1929 strikeout total as the all-time single-season record for the Negro leagues, though there is variation among the sources about the exact number of strikeouts.Ribowsky 1994, p. 56, credits him with a record 184 strikeouts, while Holway 2001, p. 244, also credits him with the record, albeit with 194 strikeouts. The statistics from the Hall of Fame study published by Hogan 2006, pp. 406–407, credit him with 176 strikeouts, which is the highest single-season total for any of the Hall of Fame or Hall-of-Fame candidate pitchers that were published in 2006, but the complete data for all pitchers were not yet available as of January 2010.) On April 29 of that season he recorded 17 strikeouts in a game against the Cuban Stars, which exceeded what was then the major league record of 16 held by Noodles Hahn and Rube Waddell. Six days later he struck out 18 Nashville Elite Giants, a number that was tied in the white majors by Bob Feller in 1938.Holway 2001, p. 244. Due to his increased earning potential, Barons owner R. T. Jackson would "rent" Paige out to other ball clubs for a game or two to draw a decent crowd, with both Jackson and Paige taking a cut.Ribowsky 1994, p. 58.
Cuba, Baltimore, and Cleveland: 1929–1931 Abel Linares offered Paige $100 per game to play winter ball for the Santa Clara team in the Cuban League. Gambling on baseball games in Cuba was such a huge pastime that players were not allowed to drink alcohol, so they could stay ready to play. Paige—homesick for carousing, hating the food, despising the constant inspections and being thoroughly baffled by the language—went 6–5 in Cuba.Ribowsky 1994, p. 61; Paige and Lipman, pp. 54–55; Figueredo, p. 183. He left Cuba abruptly before the end of the season, with several stories told about the circumstances. Paige told one version in which the mayor of a small hamlet asked him, in Spanish, if he had intentionally lost a particular game. Paige, not understanding a word the man said, nodded and smiled, thinking the man was fawning over him, and then had to flee from the furious mayor.Ribowsky 1994, p. 61. Another version, also told by Paige, says that when he called on an attractive local girl at her home, she and her family interpreted his attentions as an official engagement and sent the police to enforce it, leading Paige to flee the island with police in pursuit.Tye 2009, p. 133. A third version, told by the general manager of the Santa Clara Leopards, says that he left Cuba in haste after legal charges were brought against him regarding an amorous incident with "a young lady from the provincial mulatto bourgeoisie."González Echevarría 1999, p. 185; Tye 2009, p. 133.
When Paige returned to the United States, he and Jackson revived their practice of renting him out to various teams. In the spring of 1930, Jackson leased him to the Baltimore Black Sox, who had won the 1929 American Negro League championship led by their bowlegged third baseman Jud "Boojum" Wilson. Paige, as a Southerner, found that he was an outsider on the Black Sox, and his teammates considered him a hick. Moreover, he was the team's number two pitcher behind Laymon Yokely, and Paige did not like being overshadowed.Ribowsky 1994, pp. 65–66.