LeRoy "Satchel" Paige - "A Timeless Talent"

Leroy Robert Paige was born somewhere around July 7, what we believe to have been 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. Leroy started off scouring local alleyways and cashing in the empty bottles he’d find on the street. His mother sent him to earn money as a child carrying luggage for businessmen at the local train station to the nearby hotels, where he earned the nickname "Satchel". At the Alabama Reform School for Juvenile Negro Law-Breakers in Mount Meigs, Alabama, Satchel would learn and develop the skills necessary to be a baseball player. Satchel would go on to later say: “You might say I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch.” Because of the deals Major League teams had in place, black players began to form their own professional leagues and teams in the late 1880s. After leaving the reform school, Satchel Paige would return home and join the black semi-professional Mobile Tigers. At this time, Satchel would say, “I gave up kid’s baseball – baseball just for fun – and started baseball as a career." He would play for the Birmingham Black Barons, Baltimore Black Sox, Cleveland Cubs, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs, New York Black Yankees, Memphis Red Sox. Satchel knew not only his talent, but also his entertainment value. When he was on the field, he could attract a very diverse clientele and that definitely included white patrons as well. He was more than capable of amazing spectators with an array of pitches and gave them all catchy colorful names like the “jump ball”, the “bee ball”, the “screw ball”, the “wobbly ball”, the “whipsy-dipsy-do”, the “hurry-up ball”, the “nothin’ ball” and the “bat dodger”. One year after Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, on July 7, 1948, Satchel Paige was signed to a contract with Cleveland Indians In his rookie season, Satchel Paige posted an impressive 6 and 1 record, with a 2.48 ERA, and down the stretch helped the Indians to win not only the American League pennant, but most importantly the World Series as well. In 1971, Satchel Paige was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, and by doing so would become the first player elected to the Hall of Fame from the Negro Leagues. Satchel Paige would pass away from a heart attack on June 8, 1982 in the city where he spent much of his Negro League career, Kansas City, Missouri. Boston Red Sox hitter, Ted Williams said, “Paige was the greatest pitcher in baseball”.