The Greatest Athlete, EVER; The Story of Leroy “Satchel” Paige

The Greatest Athlete, EVER

The Story of Leroy “Satchel” Paige

By Jack Coll

7-31-14

     Picking the best of, the greatest or the most popular of anything is very subjective and usually a hot button.  The greatest band of all time? The Beatles, Stones, or “The Who.”  Best car? Toyota, Ford or Chevy.   Best town along the Jersey shore? Wildwood, Cape May or Stone Harbor. Best ice cream flavor ever, vanilla, chocolate, or one of the other two thousand six hundred and ninety four flavors.

How about best athlete to ever perform in his or her sport?  I’m willing to bet a dollar that if you lined up twenty five knowledgeable sports fans and asked them the question you would get twenty five different answers.  In golf we would have one debate, Palmer, Nicklaus, or Tiger? In boxing, Ali, Frazier, or Bernard Hopkins?  Football, wow, Jim Brown, Lynn Swan, Jim Thrope? (Notice I didn’t mention any Cowgirls). How about basketball, Wilt, Larry Bird, Dr. J, or Michael Jordan.

And then you have baseball, well “Hammering” Hank Aaron and his 24 All Star appearances certainly qualify him as the greatest baseball player ever.  But then you would have to consider Cy Young who won more than 500 games in his career, Babe Ruth, Mantel, DiMaggio, Cobb, Rose, Ripken, or Schmidt?

Well if I were standing among those twenty five guys, with twenty five different answers, my vote for the greatest athlete ever would go to Leroy “Satchel” Paige! There will never be another athlete on the face of the earth in any country that will match the stamina of Satchel, ever.  Satchel played at a professional level for 43 years, it was said that Satchel pitched more games than any man in the history of the sport and won more than a thousand games in his career.

First of all who did Satchel play for? Well I don’t know the whole answer to that but here are a few of the teams, St. Louis Browns, Kansas City Athletics, Birmingham Black Barons, Portland Beavers, Cleveland Cubs, Memphis Red Sox, Satchel Page Traveling All Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs, Bismarck Churchills, Ciudad Trujillo-Dominican Republic, Chicago American Giants, and the Cleveland Indians just to name a few.

It was said that Satchel got his nickname from stealing satchels from a train station where he grew up in Mobile,  Alabama.  This leads us to the fact that Satchel spent most of his younger life in reform school, it was in reform school that Satchel polished his arm, and his pitching skills.  Satchel joined his first professional baseball team in the Negro League in 1927, the Birmingham Black Barons, but played with a number of Barnstorming teams since 1924.  By 1930, Satchel had an overwhelming fast ball with pin-point control.  Along with Satchel’s personality, and his ability to pitch every day without hurting his arm, he became the top gate attraction in black baseball history.

Satchel was to the Negro Leagues, what Babe Ruth was to Major Leagues, wherever Satchel or Babe appeared they would sell out the stadium, the white audience was paying to see Babe hit home runs, the black audience would pay to see Satchel strike out the very best hitters of the day.  Satchel’s popularity helped keep Negro League Baseball in business during the hard times.  If a Negro team was having money problems they’d send for Satchel and he would draw enough fans in one game to keep the team from going under.

For eight years, (1930-1938) Satchel played for a number of teams, whoever would pay him the most money, and he pitched thousands of innings and rarely lost.  In 1935, he played in Bismarck, North Dakota on an integrated team and in a single season, (a period of three months/90 days) Satchel pitched in more than 60 games, he was involved in 32 decisions and went 30-2, averaging 15 strikeouts per game.

During the 1930’s Satchel pitched for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and won on average of 30 games per year, on the days he didn’t start he pitched in relief as advertised, if you paid to see the Crawfords play, you were guaranteed to see Satchel on the mound at some point during the game.  According to Negro Leaguer Sherwood Brewer, “If you told him, “Satch” this guy likes fastballs, “He’s say, “well where does he like his fastballs?”  If he threw a pitch outside, that’s where he wanted to throw it!”

A year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, Satchel got the call by the Cleveland Indians and went 6-1 helping the Indians win a pennant.  Owner of the Indians Bill Veeck was very impressed that the stadium sold out every time Satchel pitched, and, he was winning the pennant.

A funny side-note: When Satchel was barnstorming in 1959, a young guy named Bob Price was a top notch slugger in the Dixie League down in Kentucky.  With Satchel on the mound the umpire called him out on a called third strike, “I never heard such an ovation for striking out” said Price.  “I remember riding home with my Dad and him saying, “Son, I’m proud of you, you were struck out by the great Satchel Paige.”

All good things must come to an end, the last time Satchel pitched in the big leagues, and (Major League Baseball) was in 1965, at the age of 59.  The Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley signed a contract with Satchel for one game.  On September 25, against the Boston Red Sox, Finley invited several Negro League veterans including Cool Papa Bell to be introduced before the game.  Satchel was in the bullpen, sitting on a rocking chair, (as was his custom) being served coffee by a “nurse” between innings.

Satchel was called into the game and started by getting Jim Gosger out on a pop foul.  Dalton Jones was the next batter and reached first and went to second on an infield error.  Jones was thrown out trying to steal third on a pitch in the dirt for the second out.  Carl Yastrzemski doubled and Tony Conigliaro flied out to end the inning.  The next six batters went down in order, including a strikeout of Bill Monbouquette.

Satchel took the mound for his fourth inning of work, only to be removed, according to plan by Haywood Sullivan.  Satchel walked off the field to a boisterous ovation despite the small crowd.  The stadium lights dimmed and, led by the PA announcer, the fans lit matches and cigarette lighters while singing “The Old Gray Mare.”

It was said that Satchel pitched more games than any man in the history of baseball, pitching in almost every town in North America, he won well over 1,000 games.  When Satchel was in his prime during the 1930’s and early 1940’s it was not unusual for Satchel to pitch a complete game and never allow a ball to reach the outfield.

Following the 1957 season Satchel traveled to the Mexican state of Durango to appear in a United Artist movie, “The Wonderful Country,” starring Robert Mitchum and Julie London.  Satchel played Sgt. Tobe Sutton, a hard bitten Union army cavalry sergeant of a segregated black unit, Satchel was paid a hefty $10,000, and the movie became the pride of his life.  Satchel later collaborated with writer David Lipman on his autobiography released in Aril 1962, and ran to three printings.

A movie released in the summer of 1976 called “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Star & Motor Kings” was loosely based on the barnstorming days of  Leroy “Satchel” Paige and his Traveling All-Stars.  The movie is a comedic film about an enterprising group of ex-Negro League players barnstorming the country in an era of racial segregation.  The all-star cast included Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, and Tony Shaw.  Dewayne Jessie played the role of Rainbow, the deaf All-Stars batboy, the funny thing is Dewayne later appeared in the movie “Animal House,” he played the role of Otis Day of Otis Day and the Nights singing group.  The movie was directed by John Badham who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and was familiar with the Birmingham Black Barons, who shared Rickwood Field with the white Birmingham Barons.   Badham stated some of the characters and situations are loosely based on real-life people and incidents that he witnessed watching the Negro League players.

Bingo Long played by Billy Dee Williams is based on the former Black Barons star LeRoy “Satchel” Paige.  He noted that early in his career, Satchel would often call in his infield while leading in the ninth inning against an amateur or semi-professional team, and strike out the side.  Bingo did a similar stunt in the movie.  Other characters in the movie portray other stars like Willie Mays, Josh Gibson, and Jackie Robinson.

In 1981 a year before his death the movie about his life called “Don’t Look Back: The Story of Leroy “Satchel” Paige” starring Louis Gossett Jr. in the leading role playing Satchel, and Ernie Barnes portraying Josh Gibson was aired as a television special.

Yet, another funny side-note, in 1968, Satchel assumed the position of deputy sheriff in Jackson County, Missouri, with the understanding that he need not bother to actually come to work in the sheriff’s office.  The purpose of the appointment was to set up Satchel with political credentials.  Soon after he was running for a Missouri state assembly seat with the support of the local Democratic club.  Satchel never gave a speech, never made a public appearance, and was never taken seriously, he was defeated by a margin of 1,870 votes to 382.

In 1971, Leroy “Satchel” Paige was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Satch was just as famous for saying, “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”

So when you talk about the all-time greatest, I mean “The All-Time Greatest,” all I can say is beat that, he played professional baseball from 1924-1967, a total of 43 years, and finally, he was a pitching coach with the Atlantic Braves in 1969, he even pitched a pre-season game in 1969, struck out Don Drysdale.

On June 8, 1982 during a power failure, Satchel died of a heart attack at his home in Kansas City, just before his 76^th birthday.  He is buried on Paige Island in the Forest Hill Memorial Park Cemetery in Kansas City.

Hey Satch, “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”

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