Satchel Paige

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Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige, born June 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982), was a baseball and Major League Baseball pitcher best known for his longevity in the game and for his ability to attract record crowds wherever he pitched. Paige, a right-handed pitcher who played for the Cleveland Indians at age 42, was the oldest major league rookie.

He played with the St. Louis Browns until age 47 and served them in the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953.

In 1948, he became the first player to play in the World Series, and he was the first elected member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

He began his professional baseball with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League in 1926 and became one of the country's most popular and profitable players.

While his superb control as a pitcher first made him notice, it was his infectious, cocky, enthusiastic personality, and his passion for the sport that made him a celebrity.

Paige would often have his infielders stand behind him on town tours around the country, and then plainly strike out the wrong side.

He appeared in his last professional game for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League on June 21, 1966.

Early life

Leroy Robert Page, a gardener, and Lula Page, a domestic employee, were born in a section of Mobile, Alabama, dubbed Down the Bay. Lula and her children changed the spelling of their name from Page to Paige in the mid 1920s, just before Satchel's baseball career began. "Page seemed too much like a page in a book," Lula said, "My people started out spelling their name 'Page' and later stuck in the 'i' to make themselves more high-tone." The new spelling was released in conjunction with the death of Paige's father, and may have sparked a need for a fresh start.

According to Paige, his nickname arose from childhood occupations to selling bags at the train station. He said he wasn't making enough money to warrant a bag, so he built a pole and rope to create a bag that allowed him to cart up to four bags at once. "You look like a walking satchel tree," another kid yelled. By a boyhood friend and neighbor Wilber Hines, who said he gave Paige the nickname after he was caught attempting to steal a bag. Paige was playing "top ball" at the age of 10, which was what brought him into baseball. To play a version of the diamond game, "top ball" was a kids' game that used sticks and bottle caps rather than baseballs and bats. Lula, Satchel's mother, would even speculate about how Paige would prefer to "play baseball rather than eat." It was always baseball and baseball."

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 class and his habit of grabbing things that did not belong to him.

Reverend Moses Davis, the one who taught Paige to pitch while in reform school, was the one who coached Paige to pitch. It was Davis, who was also a trustee of the school, who spent the long hours coaching the boys in baseball, and he was the one who broke the game with the team's first uniforms. Davis, an African American, as well as Mount Meigs' entire teaching staff, including Cornelia Bowen, a Tuskegee Institute graduate. Paige was released from the institution in December 1923, seven months before his 18th birthday. "I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch," he summed up his years of being in prison: "I never lost five years of freedom to learn how to pitch." On the Mount, at least I started my real learning. They were not wasted years at all. It made a real man out of me."

Paige spent time with several Mobile semi-pro teams after being released. Wilson was a member of the semi-pro Mobile Tigers, for whom his brother Wilson was also pitching. He played for the "Down the Bay Boys," a semi-pro team, and recalled an incident in the ninth inning of a 1–0 baseball game when his teammates made three consecutive mistakes, loading the bases for the other team with two outs. Paige, Angry, stomped about the mound, throwing up garbage. The fans started booing him, so he decided that "somebody was going to have to turn up for that." He called in his outfielders and made them sit down in the infield. Paige beat the final batter after the crowds and his own players howled.

Personal life

Paige married Janet Howard, his longtime girlfriend, on October 26, 1934. They divorced a few years ago, and Paige was issued with divorce papers while walking onto the field during a game at Wrigley Field. Paige's divorce was finalized on August 4, 1943, with him paying a one-time fee of $1,500 plus Howard's $300 attorney's fees.

During his time playing in Puerto Rico in 1940, Paige married Lucy Maria Figueroa, but not because he was not divorced from his first wife, the marriage to Figueroa was not legal.

Paige married LaHoma Jean Brown, whether 1947 or 1947. Paige and LaHoma were married together, and LaHoma had seven children; LaHoma had a daughter from an earlier marriage.

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Post-playing career

Paige moved to Durango, Mexico, to appear in The Wonderful Country, starring Robert Mitchum and Julie London, after the 1957 season. Paige played Sgt. Tobe Sutton, a Buffalo Soldiers' hard-bitten cavalry sergeant, is adamant.

Paige started collaborating with writer David Lipman on his autobiography, which was out in April 1962 and sold to three printers by late in 1960.

Paige took over the role of deputy sheriff in Jackson County, Missouri, in 1968, with the understanding that he didn't have to go to work in the sheriff's office. The charade was intended to introduce Paige with political legitimacy. Against incumbent Representative Leon Jordan, he ran for a Missouri state assembly seat with the support of the local Democratic party immediately after. Jordan defeated Paige by a margin of 1,870 votes to 38 percent (13%–17%).

Paige reached out to all twenty MLB franchises at the time to try and join one of them on the active roster in order to reach the 158 days required to qualify for the pension guarantee, which was not possible. William Bartholomay, the owner of the Atlanta Braves, agreed to work as an advisor on August 12. The league and the players' union modified the pension guidelines on February 26, 1969, with one of the conditions requiring that any player who had played at least four years could qualify for the pension, even players that had played during 1959. Paige spent the year as an assistant trainer, in any case.

In 1969, Bowie Kuhn succeeded William Eckert as the Commissioner of Baseball. Kuhn appointed a ten-man committee to sort through hundreds of names and select the first group of four Negro league players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the wake of Ted Williams' induction address in 1966, as well as the Baseball Writers' Association of America's invitation. Since Paige played in Greensboro in 1966, he would not have been eligible for enshrinement until 1971, since players must have been out of professional baseball for at least five years before being elected. Paige had to be the first Negro league player to be elected by the committee, according to the four members. Paige will be the first member of the Negro wing of the Hall of Fame on February 9, 1971. Since many in the press saw the suggestion of a "Negro wing" as separate but equal and denounced Major League Baseball for the idea, Kuhn convinced the administrators and the Hall of Fame's private trust that there should be no separate wings at all. In the "regular" section of the Hall of Fame, it was determined that those who had been chosen and those who would be selected would be able to get their plaques.

Paige began coaching with the Tulsa Oilers minor league team in 1973 as their pitching coach. He finally slowed down his traveling in the mid-to-late 1970s, appearing only occasionally at major league stadiums and banquets.

Paige was named vice president of the Triple-A Springfield Cardinals in 1980, but it was mainly an honorary position.

In 2001, Paige was accepted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals.

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