Satchel Paige: The Pitcher Who Changed Baseball Forever

On this episode of Our American Stories, Satchel Paige didn’t just pitch; he dazzled. Known for fastballs with names like the Midnight Creeper and the Bat Dodger, he played for five decades without a relief pitcher in sight. Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, shares the life and legend of one of the greatest to ever take the mound.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Bob Kendrick. He's the president of the Negro
League's Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Today, Bob shares
with us the story of a player many experts believe,
at least experts in the world of baseball, was the
greatest of all time. And we're talking Satral Page. Take

(00:33):
it away, Bob.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think the work that we've done over the last
thirty plus years, people now come to the Negro League'
Baseball Museum expecting to meet some pretty good baseball players,
and of course you're going to lead not being disappointed.
You're going to meet some of the greatest athletes to
ever put on a baseball uniform. The time our guests

(01:01):
walk away from this experience, I think they truly walk
away with a much deeper, richer appreciation for just how
great this country really is because the story of the
Negro Leagues could have only happened in America. Yes, it
is angered against the ugliness of American segregation, a horrible

(01:21):
chapter in this country's history, But out of segregation rose
this wonderful story of triumph and conquest. And it's all
based on one small, simple principle. You won't let me
play with you in the major leagues, Okay, I'll create
my own league. And they never believed that they were

(01:47):
inferior because they were playing in the Negro leagues, or
that the white athlete was superior because they were playing
in the major leagues. But everybody else did. And so
they knew how good they were, and they knew how
good their league was. And you know what, the major
leaguers knew how good they were. Yeah, because they had
competed with and against each other in countless exhibition games.

(02:09):
And when we went to those Spanish speaking countries, there
was no separation. They were all playing together, which is
one of the reasons why I think Ted Williams, upon
his own induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame
in nineteen sixty six, stood there and boldly used his
platform to advocate for the induction of Negro league stars

(02:32):
into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He would go
on to say that he hoped someday the likes of
Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson would be inducted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame as symbols of those great
black stars who had never been given an opportunity. That
was nineteen sixty six. Five years later, Satchel Paige becomes

(02:57):
the first from the Negro leagues to be inducted into
the National Baseball Hall of Fame, or I should say
the first for his Negro league's career. He joins the
Cleveland Indians in nineteen forty eight as a supposedly forty
two year old rookie. Only God knows how old he

(03:18):
really was. Cleveland would win the World Series. My Cleveland
fans get tired of hearing me say this, but it
was the last time that Cleveland won the World Series
was nineteen forty eight with Satchel Page and Larry Doby.
Many thought Satchel should have been named Rookie of the Year.
He goes six and one with a two point four
era his rookie season at age forty two, which means

(03:42):
he was likely closer to fifty two. He never told
his real age, and quite frankly, I'm not convinced that
Sachel knew his real age. And that's not far fetched
because there were a lot of folks, particularly black folks
born in the Deep South, who didn't know how old
they were. Now Baseball says that's Satchel was born July seventh,
nineteen oh six, which I absolutely do not believe. The

(04:05):
man that died here in nineteen eighty two had likely
seen seventy six long time ago. Satchel, I believe was
born sometime in the early to mid eighteen nineties in Mobile, Alabama.
And like virtually everyone of that era, you're not born
in a hospital. You're born at home to a midwife,
and that birth record was typically kept in the back

(04:25):
page of the family Bible. Now, according to Satchel, the
goat ate that page out the Bible, so he didn't know.
But as Sachel would whimsically pose the question, how old
would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
Or that age is simply mind over matter. If you
don't mind, it don't matter. And that is how he

(04:49):
led his life. Now in his prime, they clocked his
fastball at one hundred and five miles per hour. But
what really made Satchel so specially Now I can tell
you right now one oh five dog on special. But
what really made Sachel so special was one oh five
with pinpoint control. He could put it exactly where he

(05:09):
wanted to put it. And I am not talking about
just throwing strikes. Uh. The catcher sat the target, he
hit the target, he didn't miss. You see, he didn't
warm up in the bullpen like most pitchers do. Throwing
to the catcher across home plate, you know what, Satchel
would use a stick of foil chewing gum rapper hones

(05:30):
s Gard's truth. The catcher would sit the chewing gum
wrapper on top of home plate. And wherever the catcher
moved the chewing gum rapper, Sachel right over the top
of that chewing gum rapper. He was absolutely uncanny. I
tell my guests all the time, there will never ever

(05:53):
ever be another Leroy Satchel Page, not someone who combines
the longevity. By his estimation, he pitched in over twenty
six hundred games, recorded some fifty five no hitters, and
only god knows how many strikeouts, and the charisma he
could sell it. Yeah, he could sell it, but he

(06:14):
could also back it up. And so Sachel had names
for his pitches. So he didn't have fastball, curveball, change
of know who not Satchel. Sachel had what he called
his midnight creeper. He had the two humper, he had
the bat Dodger, he had the hesitation pitch, he had
the long time, the short time, the jump ball, the

(06:35):
trouble ball, the radio ball, the wobbly ball, the dipsy dew.
And he also had a pitch that he called his
b ball. You know why he called it the bee
ball because Sachel says, it bees where I wanted it
to be, when I wanted to be there. And so
I tell all my young major league pitchers where they
come into the museum, they better develop themselves a bee ball.

(06:59):
And so he was so amazing. One of my favorite
stories relative to Sachel. They were playing in the Denver
post Tournament Satchel page All Stars versus an all white
semi pro team from the Coors Brewing Company, and Buck
O'Neill is playing first base for Sachel and It's all Stars,

(07:22):
and he says, the first kid from the Coors team
gets into the battles box, he digs in. Satchel throws
him a fastball kids swung as hard as he could,
topped it, drippled it down a third base line. It
stays fair. He beats it out and gets an infield hit. Well,
Buck says about that time, one of the kids from

(07:44):
the coolers dugout steps out on top of the dugout
steps and he yells out, less beat him. He ain't
nothing but an overrated darkie. Well Satchel's nickname, and he
had a nickname for everybody. His nickname, famously for Buck O'Neill,
was Nancy. Now that's a whole nother story. We ain't

(08:05):
got time to tell that story. But anyway, Satchel looks
over at first base. He says, Nancy, did you hear that?
Buck said yes, Sachel, I heard him. He said, Nancy,
bring him in. So Bucke is at first base. He
turns and he motions for the outfield to take a
couple of steps in. Sachel says, non, Nancy, bring him

(08:28):
all the way in honest to God's truth. There were
seven guys kneeling around the mouth, Sachel, Page, and the catcher,
and Sachel strikes out the side on nine straight pitches.
He looks into the cools dugout and says, overrated dark
you hey. And of course the kid that said this,

(08:50):
he was embarrassed, and all the guys came out to
apologize to Sachel and his teammates. But Buck O'Neill swore
to the day he died, if he had one game
to win and any choice of any picture from any era,
it would be the legendary Leroy Satchel Page. He said,
you might meet him when he was out there messing around,
but when he was locked and loaded, forget about it.

(09:14):
But as Sachel would say, there were a lot of
satul Pages that played in this league known as the
Negro Leagues. And it is so very fitting that we
now have a place where their contributions not only to
our sport are being remembered, but their contributions to our society.

(09:34):
And again it is at a time when there's only
a handful of these legendary athletes still with us. They're
like World War two vents. Many of them were World
War two vents. So what stood at risk was that
this story was going to die when that last Negro
Leaga left the face of this earth. We cannot allow

(09:56):
that to happen. I tell my guests all the time,
the Negro League's Baseball Museum doesn't need to survive. It
has to survive.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
And great job is always by Monte Montgomery on the production.
A special thanks also to Bob Kendrick, president of the
Negro League's Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Out of segregation,
Bob said, rose triumph. And indeed, the African American rebuttal
to the Major League Baseball's refusal to let African Americans

(10:29):
play was start our own league. And nobody more perfectly
represented that league and the talents than Leroy Satchel Page
twenty six hundred wins, one hundred and five mile an
hour fastball, The Story of Leroy Satchel, Page on Our
American Story