Note: One of those posts in which my
enthusiasm for the subject broke the length limits of an acceptable blog post. Thus today part I of a two day series.
On February 9, 1971 Satchel Paige became the first player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his accomplishments in the old Negro Leagues. It was a belated honor for both the legendary
pitcher and Black baseball in the Jim
Crow era.
Paige, who was both coy and vague about his exact age, undoubtedly
had the longest career ever in professional baseball from 1926 with
the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of
the Negro Southern League to his last pro game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina
League. In between he was the oldest rookie in Major League Baseball history at the age of 42 in 1948 with the Cleveland Indians.
Ever the philosopher, Paige, asked to sum up the triumphs and
the struggles of his long career,
replied simply and memorably “Don’t look back, they may be
gaining on you.”
It took Indians owner Bill Veek to personally go down to Mobile, Alabama and dig in the records of the County
Health Department to obtain Paige’s birth
certificate and determine that he was born on July 7, 1906. Paige had previously claimed birthdates ranging from 1900 to 1908 both because he was unsure himself and later to make
himself seem a bit younger to owners that might be shy about signing an
over-age pitcher. His mother, years after the fact, added to the confusion by entering the wrong year in his family Bible.
Satchel was born Leroy Robert Page to John Page, a gardener, and his wife Lula,
a maid, in Mobile, Alabama. He said his is life-long nickname Satchel came from toting luggage around the train
station as a boy, a “job” he began
around age 10. A childhood chum recalled it differently—that it came when he was arrested for stealing a bag when he was 13.
There were other arrests for theft and chronic truancy and the
boy, like many others like him, ended up committed
to the Industrial School for Negro
Children in Mount Meigs. He was there for nearly 5 years during which
time he got a rudimentary education
and performed manual labor. But he also joined the school baseball team
where coach Edward Byrd taught Page to kick
his front foot high and to swing
his arm around, so it looked like his hand was in the batter’s face when he released the ball. Based on good
behavior and Byrd’s hope for a baseball career for his protégée, Satchel was released six months early in 1923.
By this time following his father’s
death, the family inserted the “i” in their name to make the name Paige sound, “more high-toned.”
Paige kicked around with various semi-pro Negro teams in the Mobile area
over the next two years, sometimes juggling
schedules to play for two or more teams as the same time. In a game for the Down the Bay Boys, a team barely above the sand lot level, Paige found himself in a jam in the 9th inning of 1-0 game when his outfielders loaded the bases on three consecutive errors. Disgusted, he told the fielders to sit
down in the outfield. He then proceeded to strike out the side and win the game. As a barnstormer
with Negro teams later in the decade he would repeat the accomplishment in front of astounded and delighted audiences.
Such pitching prowess naturally
led to real, if low level, professional ball. In 1926 Paige was
signed to the Chattanooga White Sox
by player/manager Alex Herman, an old acquaintance
from the Mobile slums. It was
quite generous for a Black minor
league team—$250 a month with Satchel
getting $50 in cash and the rest sent home to his mother. Lulu, who told Herman that her boy was a minor, even got a $200 signing bonus for herself
for signing the contract to allow her son to play.
Paige was immediately recognized as extraordinary on the
mound. In the middle of his next
season his contract was sold to the Birmingham
Black Barons of the major Negro
National League. Over the next two
and a half season Paige would become the recognized strikeout king of
the Negro leagues racking up games with 17 Ks
besting the Major League record of 16 held by Noodles Hahn and Rube
Waddell and then only six days later fanning 18—the record Bob Feller later set in 1938 for Cleveland.
But Paige did not always have complete control of his blazing fastball. His wildness
stuck fear in the hearts of opposing players. He once set off a riot requiring police intervention when he hit an opposing player on the hand. In
the 1929 season Paige struck out 176 but finished with only a 10-9 record due
to poor offensive support from his team.
The young pitcher was already a superstar. Barons owner R. T. Jackson took advantage of Paige’s popularity by sometimes renting
his services to other teams
for a day or so to boost their attendance for a flat fee of $100 split between Jackson and Satchel.
After the ’29 season at home, Paige
went to Cuba to play for the Santa Clara Leopards in the Winter League. This time he pocketed the $100 a day
himself. Despite the big money Paige chaffed under the team’s strict no drinking and carousing policy—he both enjoyed
a taste and considered himself
a ladies man. He also could not adjust to the language
barrier or the food. He got in dust ups on and off the field, mostly fueled by misunderstanding of language and local custom. Then he got
in some sort of trouble over a girl. To
hear him tell it later in his memoirs
he just came to a young lady’s home to court
her, but her father interpreted it as a proposal and came to the stadium armed and with her brothers to enforce a wedding. Almost no one believes this. The Leopards manager saw it differently—that Paige had charges brought against him for an incident involving “a young lady from
the provincial mulatto bourgeoisie.” Either way, Paige fled Cuba.
Back in the States the struggling
Jackson rented Paige out more and more frequently and for longer
stretches. In 1930 he spent stretches
with the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro American League and Chicago American Giants in addition to
Birmingham.
The Depression was cutting
revenues for all teams in the Negro leagues and threatening their very existence. In ’31 the Birmingham team temporarily disbanded. Most other teams could not afford his
services. But Negro baseball impresario Tom Wilson moved his Nashville Elite Giants to Cleveland as the Cleveland Cubs. It
was Paige’s first experience working in
the same city as a White Major League franchise. The Cub’s rundown stadium was literally in the shadow of the Indians’ ballpark, and he resented the disparity.
By June he skipped to the Crawford
Colored Giants, an independent club
owned by Pittsburgh gangster Gus Greenlee. The team survived by playing all comers and barnstorming. He took home a fat $250 a month. Later that year he jumped at the chance to
play for Tom Wilson’s Philadelphia
Giants (which had nothing do with the City
of Brotherly Love), of the California
Winter League. There he played
against white all-star teams striking out the likes of Big Leaguer Babe Hermann. Paige would return to California for winter ball over the next eight years.
Starting in 1932 Greenlee began snatching up top talent from struggling Negro teams eventually assembling what
was surely the greatest team of
Black athletes in baseball history and which some historians believe ranks
the New York Yankees of the Murder’s Row era. Joining Paige on
the Crawfords were four other players who would eventually make it to the Hall of Fame including the legendary Josh Gibson. Mid-season
the short lived Negro East-West League collapsed,
and Greenlee was able to sign even more stars
including Cool Papa Bell to play in
his brand new Greenlee Stadium, the only Black-owned big league ballpark
in the country.
Paige was at the height of his career. He
finished the ’32 season with a record of 10–4, allowing 3.19 runs per game and
striking out 92 in 132 2/3 innings. He
also pitched the first no-hitter in Negro ball history that
June.
Paige was no longer bound a
personal service contract and did not have an exclusive contract with the
Crawfords. His experience in Black
baseball had made “belonging” to a
team an alien concept. He considered himself a hired gun and was paid by the game by Greenlee.
Greenlee organized a new Negro National League in the ’33 season
and his Crawfords gave up their status as an independent.
Now with a pennant at stake, Paige astounded the owner and
infuriated fans in August when he accepted a better deal and a late
model used car to jump to the Bismarcks,
a North Dakota semi-pro team, for
one month. For the first time Paige
played on an integrated squad and
helped the team win against local rivals.
Paige casually rejoined the
Crawfords in September and led the team
to a championship. Angry fans, however, refused to elect him to the NNL All Star
squad.
In 1934 Paige had his best season
with a 12-2 record in NNL games, allowing 2.16 runs per game, 144 strikeouts,
and giving up only 26 walks. He threw a second no-hitter on Independence Day. Fans forgave
him and he was elected to the East-West
All-Star Game which he entered as a reliever
down one run and left with a victory.
There were also other opportunities that season. Paige participated in the annual Denver
Post tournament for
independent and high level semi-pro teams.
It was the first year Black teams had been included in the
tournament. Satchel pitched for the Colored House of David, a complement to
the famous barnstorming team of bearded White sect members from Michigan.
The old war horse Grover
Cleveland Alexander was the manager.
Paige started three games in five days, the first two shutouts and the last a 2-1 victory
over the mighty Kansas City Monarchs earning
44 strike outs in the three games. It
was the first time he had pitched before a large contingent of the white press. They were dazzled by what they witnessed.
In September the Crawfords faced the
Philadelphia Stars in a special four
game charity match at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Paige faced 21 year old phenom who had gone 21-3 in league
play. The game went into extra innings
with both starters still on the mound until it was called on account of darkness with a 1-1 tie. The game
has been called the greatest in Negro ball history.
Later that fall Paige faced off
against the dominant pitcher of the National League that year, the
legendary Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals who had chalked up
30 wins that year and two more in the World
Series. It was a barnstorming
exhibition. Dean pitched for a team of
semi-pro all stars. Paige won the
contest 4-1.
The two met again later that year in
California Winter Ball play and this time Dean fronted a talented team of pros
from the Major and high minor leagues.
This time Paige won in 13 innings with a 1-0 score. Bill
Veek, Jr., then scouting for his father and the Chicago Cubs, witnessed the game and called it “the greatest pitcher’s duel I ever saw.” When he later became a team owner, he would remember Satchel
Paige.
Dean and Paige settled into a friendly rivalry that continued with
barnstorming matchups over the next ten years, a relationship all the more interesting because
Dean was a Good Ol’ Boy Mississippian. Later as a sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune Dean wrote that
Paige was “the pitcher with the greatest stuff I ever saw.”
Despite Paige’s stellar year, in 1935 Greenlee refused his request for a
raise. Paige just shrugged and went
back to the Bismarcks for the same fat paycheck and another car. The team was adding more Negro league stars
in similar situations. After going 29-2
in the teams short summer season, they were invited to a new tournament in Wichita, Kansas that paid the
players an upfront $1,000 and had a winner’s purse of $7,000. The Bismarcks swept the tournament in 7 games
with Paige starting 4 of them and coming in as relief in another. He racked up 60 strike outs—a professional
baseball record that stands
to this day.
Paige and the other players,
however, were banned by the Negro
National League from returning to their original teams for the balance of the regular season as punishment for jumping their
contracts. Paige simply signed a day to
day contract with the independent Kansas City Monarchs for the rest of the
year.
After the regular California Winter
League season, a San Francisco promoter
paid Paige to assemble a special Negro team to compete as the Satchel Paige All-Stars in a one day
February exhibition against Bay Area white
stars from the Major Leagues and the high minors. The team included young Joe DiMaggio in his last
appearance before joining the Yankees. Paige fanned DiMaggio three times. At his last at bat, Joe lined one to Paige on
the mound who deflected it letting DiMaggio reach base with a single. The Yankee scout at the game wired New
York, “DiMaggio everything we’d hoped he’d be: Hit Satch one for four.” The slugger later said Paige was the best
pitcher he ever hit against.
In 1936 Greenlee agreed to Paige’s
demands and signed him for $600 a month, by far the highest salary in the
NNL. Satchel responded with another
stellar year. He then joined a NNL
All-Star squad to compete in the Denver
Post Tournament. Paige pitched in
three of the seven games it took the team to sweep the tournament and claim the
$5,000 prize. He then led the same team
on a barnstorming tour paired with a team of White Big Leaguers led by Rogers Hornsby.
The following spring Paige was
approached by agents of Dominican
Republic Dictator Rafael Trujillo to recruit a team of Negro all-stars to
play for his personal team, the Ciudad Trujillo Dragones and given
$30,000 to attract top talent. Paige
looted his Crawford team of its best players including Cool Papa Bell and also
signed Josh Gibson who was then playing for the Homestead Grays. Once
on the island they discovered that they were accompanied at all times by
Trujillo’s armed men, supposedly for their protection. But Paige began to fear that he and
his teammates could be harmed if the
disappointed the dangerous strongman. Paige, however, managed to lead the league
with an 8-2 record.
Everyone involved was glad to get
back to the U.S., but all of the players were banned from the NNL for the
jump. Paige kept them together as a
barnstorming team first as the Trujillo
All Stars to take advantage of the considerable attention they had received
in the Negro press. Soon, however they were playing as the Paige All Stars.
In 1938 neither Greenlee nor any
other team could meet Paige’s salary demands.
So, despite his earlier unhappy experience, he returned to play in
Mexican League. Mexican promoters were
hoping Paige would lure more stars and elevate the League to Major League
status. Enraged, Greenlee declared Paige
was banned for life from the NNL.
Paige had played winter ball in Venezuela where he injured his shoulder. Reporting to Mexico, he tried to play through
the pain, only aggravating the injury. A doctor told him he would never play again and Paige came back
to the States after participating in only two games.
In 1939, his shoulder still
bothering him, Paige could not get a job until J.L. Wilkinson of the Monarchs offered him a modest contract to front a
barnstorming team once again named the Paige All Stars, but without the
stars. Paige would pitch when he felt
able and play first base otherwise. Taking it easy
and with the expert help of a trainer, Paige’s shoulder began to recover. By mid-summer his fastball returned with the
old pop. Still limiting his
innings pitched, by late in the season his team was beating regular Negro
League teams. Paige had developed a change-up to
supplement his fast ball and still
impressed the likes of Buck Henry.
That winter he played in the Puerto Rican League and tore through
it. He beat a good team fronted by Henry
23-0. That winter he sailed to a 19–3
record, a 1.93 ERA, and 208
strikeouts in 205 innings—records that still stand in Puerto Rico.
Tomorrow—The War
Years, The Bigs, and The Hall
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