Leroy Robert ‘Satchel’ Paige was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball. His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. At age 42 in 1948, Paige made his major league debut for the Cleveland Indians. Paige was the first black pitcher to play in the American League.
About Satchel Paige in brief
Leroy Robert \”Satchel\” Paige was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball. His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. At age 42 in 1948, Paige made his major league debut for the Cleveland Indians. Paige was the first black pitcher to play in the American League. He played his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League. In 1971, Paige became the first electee of the Negro League Committee to be inducted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame. His actual birthdate, July 7, 1906, was determined in 1948 when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck traveled to Mobile, Alabama and accompanied Paige’s family to the County Health Department to obtain his birth certificate. According to Paige, his nickname originated from childhood work toting bags at the train station. He said he was not making enough money at a dime a bag, so he used a pole and rope to build a contraption that allowed him to cart up to four bags at once. A different story was told by boyhood friend and neighbor, Wilber Hines, who said he gave Paige the nickname after he was caught trying to steal a bag. At the age of 10, Satchel was playing top ball, a kids’ game that used sticks and bottle caps instead of baseballs and bats to play a variation of the diamond sport.
Satchel’s mother, Lula, would even comment on how Satchel would rather play baseball than eat. It was always baseball, baseball. Satchel explained, \”My folks started out by spelling their name ‘Page’ and later stuck in the ‘i’ to make themselves sound more high-tone. Lula said, \”Page looked too much like a page in a book\”, whereas Satchel said, “I’m Satchel.’’ Paige was born Leroy Robert Page to John Page, a gardener, and Lula Page, a domestic worker, in a section of Mobile,. Alabama known as Down the Bay. It is commonly believed that Leroy and his friends engaged in rock throwing battles against the white boys of the nearby Oakdale School that was the major reason he was sentenced to reform school. The person who taught Leroy to pitch while in reform school was the Reverend Moses Davis, who was also a trustee of the school, who devoted long hours coaching boys in baseball, and it was he who struck the deal with the sporting-goods store to secure the team’s first uniforms. Leroy was released from the school in 1918 and went on to be a graduate of Tuskegee Institute. He was also the first African American to pitch in the World Series; the Indians won the Series that year. The introduction of the new spelling coincided with the death of Satchel’s father, and may have suggested a desire for a new start.
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