Satchel Paige

Negro Leagues

The early years

A former friend from the Mobile slums, Alex Herman, was the player/manager for the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League. He discovered Paige and wanted to sign him to a $50 per month contract. Lula Paige didn?t want any part of it until Herman promised to send her a stipend extracted from Satchel?s salary.

Related Topics:
Alex Herman - Chattanooga Black Lookouts - Negro Southern League

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Paige was used sparingly in 1926; on June 22 he got the starting job against the Albany Giants and ended up giving up 13 runs in the loss. It was during a game against the Memphis Red Sox that Bill ?Plunk? Drake taught Paige the hesitation pitch that Paige would make famous. For the 1927 season, Paige was given a raise to $200 per month and a slick Ford Model-A roadster. After just a few games, Paige abandoned the Lookouts for the $275 per month the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League were willing to pay.

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Pitching for the Barons, Paige was wild and awkward and didn?t want to take advice on how to pitch from his manager, Bill Gatewood. During a game on June 27, 1927, against Cool Papa Bell?s St. Louis Stars, Paige incited a riot by beaning three consecutive Stars players. Finally Paige accepted help with his mechanics from Sam Streeter and Harry Salmon. He finished the season 8-3 with 80 strikeouts and 19 walks in 93 innings.

Related Topics:
Bill Gatewood - June 27 - 1927 - Cool Papa Bell - St. Louis Stars - Sam Streeter - Harry Salmon

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Over the next 2 seasons, Paige went 23-25 while setting the Negro League single season strikeout record in 1929 with 184 including the then record of 17 in one game against the Detroit Stars. Due to his increased earning potential, Barons owner R. T. Jackson would ?rent? Paige out to other ball clubs for a game or two to draw a decent crowd, with both Jackson and Paige taking a cut.

Related Topics:
Detroit Stars - R. T. Jackson

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Cuba

Abel Linares offered Paige an astounding $100 per game to play for his Santa Clara team in Cuba alongside future Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo.

Related Topics:
Abel Linares - Santa Clara - Cuba - Hall of Famer - Martin Dihigo

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Gambling on baseball games in Cuba was such a huge pastime that players were not allowed to drink alcohol, so they could stay ready to play. Paige – homesick for carousing, hating the food, despising the constant inspections and being thoroughly baffled by the language – stayed on the island for 11 games. He ended up going 5-6 and almost got himself killed when the mayor of a small hamlet asked him, in Spanish, if he had intentionally lost a particular game. Paige, not understanding a word the man said, nodded and smiled, thinking the guy was fawning over him. Paige took his $1100 and left on a steamship out of Havana.

Related Topics:
Gambling - Spanish - Havana

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When Paige returned to the United States, he and Jackson revived their practice of renting Paige out to various teams. In the spring of 1930, Jackson leased him to the American Negro League champions, the Baltimore Black Sox, led by their bow-legged third baseman Jud ?Boojum? Wilson. Paige, being from the south, found that he was an outsider on the Black Sox and his teammates considered him a hick. Frank Warfield, the player/manager of the Black Sox, made sure that Paige knew he was the number two pitcher behind Lamon Yokelev, and that didn?t sit well with Paige.

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Paige returned to Birmingham for a few games and then was shipped to the Chicago American Giants of the NNL for a home-and-home series with the Houston Black Buffaloes of the Texas-Oklahoma League. Paige won one and lost one in the series and then returned to Birmingham.

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By the spring of 1931 the Depression was taking its toll on the Negro Leagues. No one team could afford Paige. Tom Wilson of the Nashville Elite Giants in the Negro Southern League thought he could. Wilson then moved the team to Cleveland, as the Cleveland Cubs. By the end of 1931 the Cubs moved back to Nashville. It was there that Paige started an affair with Wilson?s live-in girlfriend, Bertha Wilson.

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In June of 1931, the Crawford Colored Giants, an independent club owned by Pittsburgh underworld figure Gus Greenlee, made Paige an offer of $250 a month. On August 6, Paige made his Crawford debut against their hometown rivals, the Homestead Grays. Paige had 6 strikeouts and no walks in 5 innings of relief work to get the win.

Related Topics:
Crawford Colored Giants - Pittsburgh - Gus Greenlee - August 6 - Homestead Grays - Strikeout - Walks - Relief

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In September, Paige joined a Negro all-star team, the Philadelphia Giants, to play in the California Winter League.

Related Topics:
Philadelphia Giants - California Winter League

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Josh Gibson

In 1932, Greenlee stole Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Ted Radcliffe away from the Homestead Grays to assemble one of the finest baseball clubs in history. Crawford opened up the season on April 30th in their newly build stadium, Greenlee Field, the first completely black-owned stadium in the country. Paige ended up losing to the New York Black Yankees in a tight one but got even with them by beating them twice that season, including Paige?s first Negro League no-hitter on July 16.

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By the end of the season, Greenlee had signed to contracts Cool Papa Bell, John Henry Russell, Leroy Matlock, Jake Stephens, ?Boojum? Wilson, Jimmie Crutchfield, Ted Page, Judy Johnson and Rap Dixon. With Crawford holding, for now, five future Hall of Famers, there was no doubt who the true ?Black Yankees? were.

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In 1933, Paige, snubbed by other Negro League players and fans when he wasn?t selected for the first ever East-West All Star Game, ended up going 6-6 for the season.

Related Topics:
1933 - East-West All Star Game

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On July 4, 1934, Paige threw another no-hitter, this time against the Homestead Grays. Only a first inning walk to future Hall of Famer Buck Leonard, and an error in the 4th inning, prevented Paige from chalking up a perfect game. Leonard, unnerved by the rising swoop of the ball, repeatedly asked the umpire to check the ball for scuffing. When the umpire removed one ball from play, Paige said, ?You may as well thrown ?em all out ?cause they?re all gonna jump like that.?

Related Topics:
July 4 - 1934 - Buck Leonard - Perfect game - Umpire

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To head off an attempt by Paige to jump to the Kansas City Monarchs, Greenlee leased Paige to J. Leslie Wilkinson, owner of the Monarchs, for use on his Colored House of David during The Denver Post?s ?Little World Series? baseball tournament. Paige won three games in five days while striking out 14, 18 and 12 in each game. During the East-West All Star game of 1934, Paige – who wasn?t again denied by fans – came in during the sixth inning with the score tied at 0-0 with a man on second, and proceeded to strike out Alec Radcliffe and retire Turkey Stearnes and Mule Suttles on soft fly balls. The East scored one run in the top of the eighth and Paige did the rest by shutting down the West?s offence.

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Towards the end of the 1934 season, Paige accepted an offer from Neil Orr Churchill?s semi-pro team in Bismarck, North Dakota of $400 and a late model Chrysler straight off of Churchill?s lot for just one month?s work. There, he picked up the nickname Long Rifle from local Sioux Indians.

Related Topics:
Neil Orr Churchill - Bismarck, North Dakota - Chrysler - Sioux Indians

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On October 26, 1934, Paige married his longtime sweetheart Janet Howard. During the wedding reception, Greenlee – who paid for the reception – had Paige sign a new long-term contract for the same $250 that he?d been making. On his honeymoon in Las Vegas, which Greenlee also paid for, Paige pitched for Tom Wilson?s Philadelphia Giants in the California Winter League. Paige did particularly well against Dizzy Dean?s all-star team. Later, when Dean was a sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune, he would call Paige the pitcher with the best stuff he?d ever seen.

Related Topics:
October 26 - 1934 - Janet Howard - Las Vegas - Tom Wilson - California Winter League - Dizzy Dean - Chicago Tribune

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Paige ended up going 13-3 for the Crawfords for the season and 31-4 if you include all the games he pitched in during 1934.

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On March 3, 1935, Paige jumped teams again, this time from the Giants to another team in the CWL, the El Paso Mexicans. When Paige returned to Pittsburgh, after going 17-2 in the CWL, he got into a contract dispute with Greenlee and decided to return to Bismarck, North Dakota for the same $400 per month and late model used car that he got before while his new bride stayed in Pittsburgh. After having a very good year in which they won the Denver Post baseball tournament, Paige was run out of town when it became known that he was sleeping with several white women.

Related Topics:
March 3 - 1935 - El Paso Mexicans - Bismarck, North Dakota

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DiMaggio and Feller

Paige could not return to the NNL because he was banned from the league for the 1935 season by Greenlee when he jumped to the Bismarck team. Paige turned to J. Leslie Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs. Wilkinson, risking the wrath of Greenlee, was elated to bring Paige aboard. Paige stayed with the Monarchs through the end of the year. He got an offer to front his own team, the Satchel Paige All-Stars, from Johnny Burton, a northern California promoter who needed a team to play against an all-star squad composed of big leaguers out of the Bay Area.

Related Topics:
1935 - Johnny Burton - Bay Area

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On February 7, 1936, Joe DiMaggio was making his last stop as a minor leaguer before joining the New York Yankees, and he was going to have to face baseball?s best pitcher, Satchel Paige. DiMaggio ended up going 1-4 with the game winning RBI in the bottom of the tenth. A Yankee scout watching the game wired the big club that day a report which read, ?DIMAGGIO EVERYTHING WE?D HOPED HE?D BE: HIT SATCH ONE FOR FOUR.?

Related Topics:
February 7 - 1936 - Joe DiMaggio - New York Yankees - RBI

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Paige, at the demand of his wife, returned to Pittsburgh where Greenlee acquiesced to Paige?s salary demands and gave him a $600 per month contract, by far the highest in the Negro Leagues. In order to get Wilkinson not to sign Paige again, Greenlee agreed that the NNL would recognize a competing league the following season, to be made up of Midwest teams and overseen by Wilkinson. That would lead to the renewing of the Negro League World Series, which hadn?t been played since 1927.

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Paige ended up going 7-2 with three shutouts, but things were getting bad for him at home. At the end of the season, Tom Wilson, owner of the Washington Elites, assembled an all-star team comprised of Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Leroy Matlock, Buck Leonard, Felton Snow, Wild Bill Wright and Sammy Hughes, barnstorming through the Midwest. They swept through the Denver Post tournament in seven straight games, Paige winning three of them by the scores of 7-1, 12-1 and 7-0 with 18 strikeouts in the title game against an over matched semi-pro team from Borger, Texas. During another series against a team of big leaguers led by Rogers Hornsby, Paige won a pitching duel with a 17-year-old phenom by the name of Bob Feller.

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Dominican Republic

During a 1937 swing through New Orleans by the Crawfords, Paige was approached by Dr. José Enrique Aybar, dean of the University of Santo Domingo, deputy of the Dominican Republic?s national congress and director of Los Dragones, a baseball team operated by Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. Aybar hired Paige to act as an agent for Trujillo in recruiting other Negro League players to play for Los Dragones. Aybar gave Paige $30,000 to hire as many players as he could. Paige ended up bringing eight other players when he jumped to Los Dragones for their eight week season, including Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Leroy Matlock, Sam Bankhead, Harry Williams and Herman Andrews. Paige had a league best 8-10 record and Los Dragones finished the season in first place with an overall record of 18-13. After Los Dragones beat San Pedro de Macorís in the title series 4 games to 3 by coming from a 3 games to 0 deficit, all the players (Paige latter than the rest) returned to the states.

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Having little choice because they were all banned from the NNL, the returning players formed Trujillo?s All-Stars and barnstormed around the Midwest. J. Leslie Wilkinson got around the ban by having promoter Ray Dean schedule House of David games with the All-Stars and then he used his influence to get them entered into the Denver Post tournament. The rift between him and the rest of the players was never more evident than when Paige didn?t show up for the first six games of the tournament, but did show up for the final, which the winning pitcher would receive a $1,000 bonus. His team ended up losing to a semi-pro team from Oklahoma. It was a double-elimination tournament ? necessitating another game between the same two teams ? suspicion persisted that Paige?s teammates threw the game so he wouldn?t get the winning pitcher?s bonus.

Related Topics:
Trujillo?s All-Stars - Ray Dean - House of David - Oklahoma

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Due to his ongoing dispute over salary with Paige, Greenlee sold his contract to the Newark Eagles for $5,000. Paige was interested in playing for the Eagles, not so much for the money, but for one of the owners, Effa Manley. Rumor around the Negro League was that she would have an affair with the best players, and Paige thought that he qualified. When Manley rejected his offer, Paige, having learned about an injunction that wouldn?t allow him to play for any other team in New York or New Jersey, went to play in Mexico.

Related Topics:
Newark Eagles - Effa Manley - New York - New Jersey - Mexico

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Mexico

Jorge Pasquel, a Mexican beer distributor, and his four brothers wanted to compete with the major leagues. Their plan to do that was to hire the best Negro League players who were ignored by the big leagues, then raid big league teams and field integrated clubs in the name of international baseball. With this goal, they hired Paige for an astounding fee of $2,000 per month, not to play for the Pasquels? Vera Cruz team, but to play for the moribund Agrario club of Mexico City, to create a rivalry for Club Azules, a powerhouse bunch led by Martin Dihigo. Back in the states, Greenlee, out $5,000, declared Paige ?banned forever from baseball.?

Related Topics:
Jorge Pasquel - Vera Cruz - Agrario - Mexico City - Club Azules

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Three games into the season, Paige?s arm went dead. He could barely lift his arm, much less pitch. In the final game of the season, Paige was matched up against Dihigo. Paige relied on throwing junkballs while Dihigo was throwing blistering fastballs. Through six innings, Paige threw from every angle from overhead to crossfire, even underhanded. He was able to hit the corners of the plate for strikes and the batters, always wary of his fastball, couldn?t dig in properly and take advantage of his lack of velocity. Finally in the seventh, his arm gave out completely. With the game scoreless, Paige gave up a hit and two walks. Rearing back to throw a fast ball, he uncorked a wild pitch that resulted in a run scoring. He managed to retire the side by going back to throwing junkballs.

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Paige was removed for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the inning, and Agrario tied it up against Dihigo, taking Paige off the hook for the loss. Dihigo ended up winning the game with a two-run homer in the ninth, but the flood gates were open as Negro League players streamed into Mexico, again forsaking their teams. Paige returned to Pittsburgh a broken man.

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The Kansas City Monarchs

Having burned a number of bridges behind him in the States, only one ballclub owner was willing to give Paige a chance to play ball again -- J.L. Wilkinson of the Monarchs. Wilkinson built a team around Paige called the Travelers, a roving division of the Monarchs.

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Managed by Newt Joseph, the team included Big Train Jackson, George Giles and John Marcum, but it was mostly full of Monarch wannabees and has-beens. Paige would get a percentage of the gate receipts for showing up and throwing just a couple of innings, relying on junkballs. On September 22, 1939 in the first game of a double-header against the powerful American Giants, Paige won a 1-0 game, striking out 10 men in the seven innings before the game was called on account of darkness. After pitching non-stop for over a decade, the seven months since his last pitching game in Mexico gave his arm a chance to heal. In the process, Paige became a better pitcher, utilizing control, finesse and even trickery.

Related Topics:
Newt Joseph - Big Train Jackson - George Giles - John Marcum - September 22 - 1939 - American Giants

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To get his arm in shape, Paige spent the winter playing for the Guayama Brujos in Puerto Rico where he went 19-3 with a 1.93 ERA and a league high 208 strikeouts. Paige won two games in the playoff finals against the San Juan Senadores and won the league?s most valuable player award.

Related Topics:
Guayama Brujos - Puerto Rico - ERA - San Juan Senadores

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Paige returned to the Travelers for the 1940 season. During the latter part of the season he was promoted to the Monarchs. On September 12, Paige made his debut with the Monarchs against the American Giants. He went all five innings and would have gone all nine, but the game was called by darkness. The Monarchs won 9-3, and Paige struck out 10.

Related Topics:
1940 - September 12

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Because the Monarch?s season didn?t begin until July, Paige, with Wilkinson?s permission, bounced between his All-Star team (once named the ?Travelers?) and NNL teams that needed him to sell out their parks. The New York Black Yankees were the first team to take advantage of Paige?s rebirth. While pitching for the Black Yankees, Life did a pictorial of him. In 1941 Wilkinson purchased a DC-3 airplane just to ferry Paige around to his outside appearances.

Related Topics:
New York Black Yankees - Life - 1941 - DC-3

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On August 1, 1941, Paige made his first return to the East-West All Star Game in five years, collecting 305,311 votes, 40,000 more than the next highest player, Buck Leonard. Due to a minor injury to his left arm when he was hit by a pitch on July 23, 1941, he did not start the game, but because of his presence, 50,256 people packed Comiskey Park. Paige came in for the start of the eighth inning when the game was well in hand for the east 8-1. The only hit he gave up was a slow roller to the NNL?s new starting catcher – Josh Gibson was still in Mexico – the Baltimore Elite Giants? Roy Campanella.

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On October 5, 1941, Wilkinson booked a game in Sportsman's Park between the Satchel Paige All-Stars and the Bob Feller All-Stars. The Fellers won the game 4-3 with St. Louis Cardinals rookie Stan Musial hitting a Paige fastball over the right field pavilion roof. After the season was over, Paige once again played in the California Winter League, this time he pitched against a team that had Jimmie Foxx and, coming off his .406 season, Ted Williams.

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Janet Paige finally caught up to Paige when she had him served with divorce papers while he was walking onto the field during a game at Wrigley Field. At his court date, on August 4, 1943, Paige?s divorce was finalized with him paying a one time payment of $1,500 plus $300 for attorney?s fees to Janet.

Related Topics:
Janet Paige - Wrigley Field - August 4 - 1943

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With America?s entrance into World War II, Paige committed himself to pitching in frequent exhibitions to sell war bonds and raise money for war-related charities. One such game was on May 24 at Wrigley Field against the Dizzy Dean All-Stars. The game, which was played to raise money for the Navy Relief Fund, was the first time a colored team ever played at Wrigley. With many of the major league?s best players in the service, including DiMaggio and Ted Williams, Paige, whose income was nearly $40,000, was easily the highest paid athlete in the world.

Related Topics:
World War II - War bonds - May 24 - Dizzy Dean All-Stars - Navy Relief Fund

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In the 1942 Negro League World Series, during Game Two, with two on and two out and the Monarchs beating the Grays 2-0 under the lights at Griffith Stadium, Paige gave up a hit to Jerry Benjamin. Paige then intentionally walked the next two batters, Howard Easterling and Buck Leonard, so that he could pitch to the most feared hitter in all of baseball, Josh Gibson. Gibson ended up striking out on three straight pitches. The Monarchs ended up sweeping the series against the Grays with Paige winning the last three games (the one game that the Grays did win was voided because they used four illegal players.)

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Integration in baseball

When Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, a teammate of Paige, Paige realized that it was for the better that he himself wasn?t the first black in major league baseball. Robinson started in the minors, an insult that Paige would not have tolerated. By integrating baseball in the minor leagues first, the white major league players got the chance to ?get used to? the idea of playing along side black players. Understanding that, Paige said in his autobiography that, ?Signing Jackie like they did still hurt me deep down. I?d been the guy who?d started all that big talk about letting us in the big time. I?d been the one who?d opened up the major league parks to colored teams. I?d been the one who the white boys wanted to go barnstorming against.? Paige, and all other black players, knew that quibbling about the choice of the first black player in the major leagues would do nothing productive, so, despite his inner feelings, Paige said of Robinson, ?He?s the greatest colored player I?ve ever seen.?

Related Topics:
Branch Rickey - Jackie Robinson - First black

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After losing two of the first four games of the 1946 Negro League World Series, and not showing up at all for the last three games of the series, Paige and Bob Feller started barnstorming across the United States with their respective All-Star teams. The tour helped revive Paige?s reputation, which had languished since the 1942 Negro League World Series.

Related Topics:
1946 - Negro League World Series

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On October 12, 1947 in Hays, Kansas, Paige married his longtime girlfriend Lahoma Brown in a civil ceremony. A month later, she became pregnant with their daughter, Pamela.

Related Topics:
October 12 - 1947 - Hays, Kansas - Lahoma Brown

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Finally, on July 7, 1948, with his Cleveland Indians in a pennant race and in desperate need of pitching, Indians owner Bill Veeck brought Paige in to try out with Indians player/manager Lou Boudreau. On that same day, Paige signed his first major league contract, for $40,000 for the three months remaining in the season, becoming the first Negro pitcher in the American League and the seventh Negro big leaguer overall.

Related Topics:
July 7 - 1948 - Cleveland Indians - Bill Veeck - Lou Boudreau

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◄ Satchel Paige: Pre-professional career

Satchel Paige: Major Leagues ►

~ Table of Content ~

►	Introduction
►	Theiapolis People!
►	Pre-professional career
►	Negro Leagues
►	Major Leagues
►	Post-playing career
►	Pitch names
►	"Rules for Staying Young"
►	Baseball cards
►	References
►	External links
►	Goodies & Collectibles
►	Posters & Prints

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