Baseball signed by Satchel Paige

Object Details

Associated Name

Paige, Satchel

Wilson Sporting Goods Company

Description

With a professional baseball career lasting from the jazz age to the space age, Pitcher Leroy Robert SatchelPaige (1906-1982) established himself not only as one of the most dominant American athletes of all time, but also one of the most remarkable.

Paige earned the nickname “Satchel” as a boy, earning money carrying passenger’s bags at the train station in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama. Sent to the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs at the age of 12 for a the minor offense of stealing some toy rings from a store, Paige worked on his baseball skills until his release just before his 18th birthday.

In 1924, Paige earned his first professional paycheck, pitching for the semi-professional outfit team the Mobile Tigers. 6’ 3 and lanky, Paige dominated the opposition, and was signed to the Negro Southern League’s Chattanooga Black Lookouts in 1927.

Paige thus began his lengthy and nomadic professional baseball career. Records for the various Negro League Organizations are scare scarce and incomplete, but we know that between 1926 and 1947 Paige played for the Lookouts, the Birmingham Black Barons, the Baltimore Black Sox, The Cleveland Cubs, The Pittsburgh Crawfords, The Kansas City Monarchs, The New York Black Yankees, the Memphis Red Sox and the Philadelphia Stars. He also moonlighted in other exhibition games, winter leagues and for a variety of barnstorming teams.

Paige was beloved not only for his dominance on the mound, but for his enthusiasm and cocksure personality. He loved to impress the crowd, striking out batters with speed and control. One of the more famous clubs for which Paige excelled was the 1942 Kansas City Monarchs, who won the Negro League World Series. The team, managed by Frank Duncan, and led Paige Buck O’Neil, is considered one of the most talented teams in Negro League history. As O’Neil has said of the club, “I do believe we could have given the New York Yankees a run for their money that year.”

Paige finally got his chance to pitch before Major League audiences in 1948, two years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Signed mid-season by the Cleveland Indians, the living legend and oldest rookie in Major League history (42) set attendance records in Cleveland and Chicago on his first three starts.

Paige went 6-1 with the Indians, helping the team reach the World Series, where, called to the mound in game 5, he became the first African-American to pitch in a Major League Championship game. The Indians would take the title, defeating the Braves four games to two.

After pitching for Cleveland for another year, Paige briefly left Major League Baseball, barnstorming for a couple of years before returning to the Majors in 1951, signing with the St. Louis Browns and being named to two All-Star teams.

After leaving the Browns in 1953, Paige continued to pitch for barnstorming teams and in the minor leagues. Paige’s last major league appearance was in 1965, where at 59, Paige played one game for the Kansas City A’s, throwing threw three shut-out innings against the Boston Red Sox.

Paige’s last turns on the mound came in 1967, pitching for the Indianapolis Clown, the last all-black baseball club. By his own estimation, he had pitched in about 2,500 games before finally putting down his glove for good.

Despite his popularity, success and lengthy career, Paige’s true legacy has been lost due to the racial inequities that burdened his life. It is a true testament to his abilities and work ethic that he was able to become a living legend despite being forced to play outside of the Major Leagues for the majority of his career, as well as having to do so while facing wide-ranging discriminatory practices and bigotry. As he said himself in a 1982, the year of his death, They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw... I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice.

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