On this day (September 25) in 1965, Leroy “Satchel” Paige got up out his rocking chair in the bullpen and took the mound for the Kansas City Athletics (against a tough Boston Red Sox line up) – making Paige (at a generally accepted 59 years, 2 months and 18 days of age) the oldest player ever to appear in a major league game. I say generally accepted since, like much of the Satchel Paige legend, his birth date (officially listed at July 7, 1906) is difficult to document. There are a few facts about Paige, however, that will never be in doubt. He loved and lived to pitch, he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, hurlers to ever take the mound; and he was also one of baseball’s biggest and brightest personalities.
But, back to September 25, 1965. The 59-year-old Paige pitched three scoreless innings that day, striking out one and giving up only one hit, a double to Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski. That appearance that was just the cherry atop the Satchel Paige legend.
Right here, BBRT will add another “fact.” The fact that Paige was unable to cross MLB’s color line until age 42 (in 1948, when Paige became MLB’s oldest-ever “rookie” and the first African-American to pitch in the American League) was MLB’s loss.
When Paige came to the major leagues the year after Jackie Robinson broke the game’s color line, he was already a hardball legend, having established his dominance – and his ability to fill stadiums – in semipro ball, the Negro Leagues, Dominican League, Mexican League, Cuban League, Puerto Rican League and with a host of barnstorming teams. Let’s use the anniversary of his record-breaking Kansas City appearance to reflect on Paige’s remarkable career.
Overall, it is estimated that Paige pitched more than 2,500 games between 1924 and his his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League – recording 2,000+ wins, 300 shutouts and more than 50 no-hitters. Just how good was Paige?
Here’s what a few Baseball Hall of Famers had to say:
Dizzy Dean … “My fastball looks like a change of pace alongside that little pistol bullet Satchel shoots up to the plate.”
Joe DiMaggio … Paige is “the fastest and best pitcher” I ever faced.
Hack Wilson … Paige’s heater “starts out like a baseball and when it gets to the plate, it looks like a marble.”
Bob Feller … “The best pitcher I ever saw.”
Ted Williams … “Satch was the greatest pitcher in baseball.”
In his prime, Paige’s fastball was reportedly measured (by the primitive technology of the day) at 103 mph. As for control, in a 1953 article published in Colliers, author Richard Donovan shared a story of Paige placing a matchbox on a stick near home plate and then knocking it off on thirteen of twenty pitches. That is the stuff of which legends are made.
Further, as a hurler-for-hire and perhaps baseball’s highest-paid gate attraction (Paige would pretty much take the mound for any team that could afford him), Satchel regularly pitched more than 100 games a year (and, at times, two in a day).
In 1948, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed the 42-year-old Paige to a major league contract – in what some called a pure publicity stunt. Sporting News writer J.G. Taylor Spink, in fact, asserted that “To bring in a pitching rookie of Paige’s age is to demean the standards of baseball.” Paige, as he almost always did, got the last laugh, noting “I demeaned the big leagues considerable that year. I won six and lost one.”
Paige pitched in 21 games in 1948, with seven starts, three complete games, two shutouts, one save and a 2.48 ERA. For his six-year MLB career (all after age 42), Paige went 28-31, 3.29 with 32 saves. Did the over-40 Paige belong in the big leagues? Here’s what Casey Stengel had to say, “If we don’t get ahead in the first six innings, the Browns bring in that damned old man, and we’re sunk.”
There isn’t room here to touch on all Paige’s “legendary” exploits (pitching 29 games in one month with only a single loss; pitching no-hitters in two cities on the same day; going 135-37 in three seasons with the Negro League’s Pittsburgh Crawfords; consistently defeating barnstorming teams that included major leaguers; winning three games in the 1942 Negro League World Series; and more). There’s not even space to detail all of his beloved pitches, to which he gave names like the Bat Dodger, Hurry-Up Ball, Four-Day Creeper, Long Tom, Smoke Ball, Midnight Rider and renowned Hesitation Pitch. BBRT suggests you take the time to learn more about Satchel’s remarkable mound prowess. (Satchel Paige … The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye and Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever by Leroy Satchel Paige are good places to start.) In the meantime, here are some of philosopher Paige’s words to live by:
About Life
“Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”
“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
“You win a few. You lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”
About Baseball
“I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I would toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.”
“Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”
