Satchel Paige Signed in Indian Relief Role

Sounds like the latest political story, but it isn’t.  This article is about the fabulous Satchel Paige, the legendary Negro League pitcher who was signed by the equally legendary baseball owner, Bill Veeck, to help the Cleveland Indians win the 1948 American League pennant and World Series.

Here’s the article taken from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette dated July 8, 1948.

Satchel Paige Signed In Indian Relief Role

Have Been Around Too Long to Worry about Big League Batters, He Says

CLEVELAND, July 7 (AP) – The pennant-chasing Cleveland Indians Wednesday signed that old veteran Satchel Paige as a relief pitcher.

The tall, lean hurler who has had a fabulous career in the Negro Leagues and the exhibition circuit put on a major league uniform for the first time Wednesday.  But he isn’t scared.  He summed it all up:

“I’m starting my Major League career with one thing in my favor anyway.  I won’t be afraid of anybody I see in the batter’s box.  I’ve been around too long for that.”

That was Leroy (Satchel) Paige speaking, the famous Satchel of Negro baseball fame, who has fogged his “hurry up” ball and bat dodger past major leaguers in many an exhibition game for years.

Just how long he has “been around,” or how many games he has won isn’t very clear.

Age Not Definite

“Born in Mobile,” he said.  “September 18, 1908.  His age has been estimated variously in the 40s and even 50s, but he says he was eligible for the draft all through the Second World War.”

But whatever age he admits to, Bill Veeck signed him up in the hope his right-hand relief pitching could bolster the Tribe’s drive for a pennant.  Veeck bought Paige’s contract from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League.  How much Satchel will be paid wasn’t told.  But his recent earnings have been estimated at upwards of $30,000 annually.

In the past two decades the Satchel has made most of the Major Leaguers admit he is one of the all-time great hurlers.  Babe Ruth and Ted Williams are about the only sluggers who haven’t faced him on the exhibition circuit.

DiMaggio His Toughest

And how does he size them up?  Of the present crop, Joe DiMaggio is the toughest.

“Before DiMaggio, Charley Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers gave me more trouble than anyone else.  He must have had the finest pair of eyes in baseball,” he said.  “He’d stand up there and take a pitch a quarter-inch off the plate as calmly as if it had been two feet wide.”

Ken Keltner of the Indians also gave him some trouble in 1946, when Bob Feller’s touring All-Stars were playing a series with a Negro All-Star team, “but when I started pitching him overhand and high, he didn’t do me any damage to speak of.”

Last fall Paige faced Feller’s all-star assortment in Los Angeles to win an 8 to 0 decision in which he struck out 16.

Back in 1934 he faced Dizzy Dean at his peak, and took a 1 to 0 win in 13 innings, a game which Veeck calls “the best I’ve ever seen.”

1934 His Big Year

That was a big year for Satchel.  He was pitching for Bismarck, N.D., a team which won 104 of the 105 games it played.

“And I pitched in every game, I guess.  I know there was one month when I started 29 games,” he went on.

Satchel always has had a penchant for new automobiles and food.  Sometimes the automobiles were fire engine red.  He once said the secret of his success was compounded of two very hot baths every day and plenty of fried chicken and pork chops.  There are stories that he once ate a dozen hot dogs during a game, then dined on half a turkey and a whole watermelon.

The Monarchs bought him an airplane in 1946, for keeping engagements.  That was his best recent season.  He helped the Monarchs win the league pennant, allowing only two runs in 93 innings and running a string of scoreless innings to 64.

Proved His Ability

Most of the time he threw only a few innings, but he pitched a full game to clinch the pennant.  “Just wanted ‘em to know old Satch still had it.”

His strikeout record for a single game is the same as Feller’s – 18.  That was back in 1932 for the Monarchs and against the Baltimore Black Sox, in Yankee Stadium.

He has pitched a “hatful” of no-hitters, but some of them were against feeble opposition and he says those don’t count.  He doesn’t recall how many games he has won, nor his strikeout total.  He got into baseball in 1925 with the Chattanooga Lookouts and in 1928 joined the Birmingham Barons.  He has been with the Baltimore Black Sox, Chicago American Giants, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the House of David.

Has Secret Tryout

Veeck and Manager Lou Boudreau had him down at the stadium Tuesday for a “secret tryout.”  It was the first time Boudreau had seen him in action.  He threw 50 pitches, “an only three or four of them were wide of the plate,’ said Veeck.  Boudreau managed a few line drives, but said, “Now I can believe some of the tall stories they tell me about his pitching.”

Three Negroes are now in the major leagues – Larry Doby of the Indians and Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Paige was brought to Cleveland by Promoter Abe Saperstein, the Tribe’s chief scout of Negro players.  Veeck said he signed Satchel because “We are convinced he is the best available player who has a chance to help us win the pennant.”

The newest Indian stands six feet three and one-half inches and weighs 180.  He is unmarried.

Satchel Paige became the oldest rookie in major league history and in his inaugural season he went 6-1 in 21 games (7 starts) with a 2.48 ERA.  Bill Veeck was mocked for signing him and was told that if Satchel Paige was white no-one would have signed him in 1948 at the ripe old age of…well, let’s just say old.  To which Veeck responded, “If Satchel had been white, he would have been in the majors 20 years ago.”

All-star games and exhibition are just that, but let’s assume that Satchel Paige in an exhibition game pitching against Dizzy Dean proved that he was just as good as Ol’ Diz.  It’s a broad stroke assumption and I hope to be roundly criticized for it.  In 1934 Dizzy Dean posted a 30-7 record, pitched in 50 games, had an ERA of 2.66.  Could Paige have matched that record?  My guess is that he could have.

We will never know.

I will also make another huge assumption.  Because of his longevity if he made the majors in 1928 instead of the Negro League, he would have had 20 years in the majors, and his control, I would guess that he could have won well over 350 games with an ERA in the range of 2.50-3.00, with well over 3,000 strikeouts.  Would those stats put him in the discussion of the best pitchers of all time?  The top five?  Top ten?

We will never know.

With Cleveland in 1948, he helped the Tribe to their last World Series title. If he landed with the New York Yankees of the late 20s through the late 40s, how many World Series would he have won?

We will never know.

Some things we do know now and it came way too late.  Too late for those great ballplayers who were denied even a chance to play.

And that’s the shame.