From: ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: cito gaston: first af-am manager to win world series?
Date: 11 Nov 1992 08:43:45 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu

In article <BxIC91.6F9@cs.columbia.edu> d-yang@cs.columbia.edu (David Yang) writes:
>Actually, I'd say Vida Blue (for the Oakland A's) proved African-Americans
>can pitch extremely well in the majors back in the 70's (I think he won the
>Cy Young award).  And to be fair, Satchel Paige proved his skill a long
>ways before that.

[From _Baseball Anecdotes_ by Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf]

Late  in  Jackie Robinson's rookie season, Bill Veeck  integrated  the
American  League when he signed outfielder Larry Doby.  And  the  next
year he brought to the majors black baseball's greatest star,  Satchel
Paige.

According  to  both Dizzy Dean and Charlie Gehringer,  Paige  was  the
greatest pitcher who ever lived.  He was as confident of this fact  as
anyone,  as evidenced by an incident that took place in Pittsburgh  on
July  21,  1942.  Pitching against the Homestead  Grays,  Paige  found
himself  leading  4-0, with two out in the seventh inning.   Then  the
Grays' next batter, Jerry Benjamin, tripled.

Paige  call  his  first baseman, Buck O'Neil, over to  the  mound  and
informed  him  he  was going to walk the next two  hitters,  load  the
bases,  and pitch to Josh Gibson--the Babe Ruth of the black  leagues.
As  he  threw  four straight balls to Buck Leonard,  who  batted  just
before Gibson, he called to the Homestead star in the on-deck  circle,
"I'm gonna put Buck on and pitch to you."

Before  his  first pitch, Paige told Gibson he was going  to  throw  a
fastball.   Gibson  watched it pass, for strike one.  He  told  Gibson
another  fastball was coming, and again Gibson let it by,  for  strike
two.   And on the third pitch, Paige whipped another  fastball,  right
past Gibson's knees,  The inning was over.

In Oakland, the season before Joe DiMaggio came up, the Yankees sent a
scout to see him play against a Paige-led barnstorming team.   Richard
Donovan said the Yankee scout wired the home office, "DIMAGGIO ALL  WE
HOPED HE'D BE.  HIT SATCH ONE FOR FOUR."

When  Veeck signed him in '48, Paige was already past forty.  In  _The
Sporting  News_,  editor Taylor Spink wrote, "To bring in  a  pitching
`rookie'  of  Paige's age casts a reflection on the entire  scheme  of
operation in the major leagues.  To sign a hurler at Paige's age is to
demean  the  standards  of  baseball in  the  big  circuits.   Further
complicating  the  situation  is the suspicion that  if  Satchel  were
white, he would not have drawn a second thought from Veeck."

As Veeck would later write, "If Satch were white, of course, he  would
have  been in the majors twenty-five years earlier, and  the  question
would  not have been before the House."  And as it turned  out,  Paige
won  six  games and lost only one for the pennant-bound  Indians  that
season--and after each victory, Veeck would send a telegram to  Spink,
adjusted  to  the  circumstances:  "NINE  INNINGS.   FOUR  HITS,  FIVE
STRIKEOUTS.   WINNING  PITCHER:  PAIGE.  DEFINITELY IN  LINE  FOR  THE
SPORTING NEWS AWARD AS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR."

There  is  no end to Satchel Paige stories, just as there was  in  his
lifetime  no end to writers who tried to pry them out of him.   Though
generally obliging, Paige could at times get resistant.  According  to
Richard  Donovan, when Paige was finishing up his second  career,  the

gonna  straighten  out  2,500 ball games in my  head?   How  many  cow
pastures you played on, Satchel? they wanta know.  How many bus  rides
you took?  Who put the spike scars on your shinbone?  Why is your feet
flat?  Who was it offered you $50 to pitch a triple-header that time?

"Man," he concluded, "the past is a long and twisty road."
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american