Small Wonders -- Old Satch

Just a few days after his twelfth birthday, the kid got sent up to reform school because all too often things that were there a minute-or-so ago were gone once the door closed behind him, if you know what I mean. So this kid named Satchell Paige had a criminal record when he was eighteen years old, before he'd pitched at all; but here’s the thing: in reform school the good Lord blessed him with a coach and a teacher, Rev. Moses Davis, who that same good Lord conscripted to teach this kid named Satchell Paige to be a chucker.

Seriously, all he'd ever played before the Alabama Reform School for Juvenile Law-Breakers--the honest-to-God name of the place--was a silly game with sticks and bottle caps. Preacher Davis taught him and the others baseball, even made a team of 'em, if you can believe it, got a grocery store to kick in fancy shirts.

That Reform School was in Mount Meggs, Alabama, the small town where Rev. Moses Davis taught his very special student everything he knew about pitching. "I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch," Satchell Paige used to say. "I started my real learning on the Mount."

Trust me, this guy was not to be believed. When he was touring with an all-black cast of fielders behind him, there were times Paige smiled, told 'em all to sit down and take life easy while he turned batters into window fans. Once in a while he'd bet locals he'd strike out the first nine hitters, then proceed to do just that and walk away, cash in hand.

The stories are endless. On April 29 he struck out 17 Cuban Stars; six days later, eighteen Nashville Elite Giants. Things were loosie-goosy back then in the Negro leagues; rival ball teams would come knocking to rent out Satchel Paige and his blind-man fast ball because fans would move the turnstiles just to see this chucker pitch.

His arm had nuclear power. Hack Wilson told reporters that Satchel Paige was so fast the ball looked like a pill when it got to the plate. Bob Feller, the famous Bob Feller, the Iowan, said Satchel Paige was so fast he made Feller's heralded fastball look like a change-up.

 On July 4, 1934, Satchel fanned Buck Leonard, who demanded the ump toss out the ball because he couldn’t believe what that ball did on the way to the plate. Paige hollered at him. “You may as well thrown ‘em all ‘cause they’re all gonna jump like that.” Right he was. Satchell Paige struck out 17 that game.

A scout from the Chattanooga White Sox of the Southern Negro Baseball League spotted him in 1926, when he was somewhere between 26 or 34, depending on when he’d say he was born. Fans knew Paige was a phenom a globetrotter--he played in Cuba, in Mexico, in the Dominican, and throughout the States, New York to LA.

 When he was 42 years old--best estimate at least--Satchel Paige signed his very first major league contract, so the Cleveland Indians put him on the field for two innings as the oldest rookie ever to lace up spikes the white major leagues. In the bigs, he pitched his last inning when he was 60 years old.

 On June 8, 1982, when he was 80 years old, give or take a few, Satchel Paige, died of a heart attack. He's buried in Kansas City, the city where, in 1920, the Negro Baseball League was charted, drawn up in an YMCA just up the block from 18th and Vine and the National Negro League Baseball Museum.

Drop in sometime and say hello to old Satch, his statue anyway. He's on the mound in a little ballpark in the middle of the museum, where he’s surrounded by guys like Josh Gibson, a burly catcher who once hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium with only one arm.

 There’s a lot of old Satch there—18^th and Vine, KC. You won’t believe what you see.