If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige

14 - Extra Innings

258 14 Extra Innings By the end of 1953 the handwriting on the wall was written in indelible ink. There was no debate among Major League team owners, with, perhaps, the exception of one, that the clock on the wall had run out on the great fireballer, as it does for every athlete sooner or later. In Paige’s case, it had been much later, which afforded him an inordinate amount of time to dazzle the public with a career that impacted beyond the boundaries of baseball. His longevity on the mound, for one thing, became the focal point for serious discussions on age discrimination and the rethinking of mandatory retirement . Paige defied conventional wisdom about how long an athlete could perform, and he became a role model for senior practitioners who contemplated continuing their careers. He was the seminal pioneering example for athletes who wanted to control their own bodies and destinies, and he showed the sporting world that “it’s never over until it’s over,” to paraphrase one of his admirers. The combination of necessity, ego, and ability was a force that prompted him to continue. In the end, he was part of the movement to make baseball rethink itself, as American society did in the late 1950s and 1960s, and beyond. It was never over for Satchel Paige, even when he threw out his last baseball. With a wife and four children to provide for, and more youngsters on the way, Paige continued with what he knew best, the nomadic life of barnstorming wherever they would pay the price for his baseball talents as fastballer for hire. Before the 1953 season was completely over, he was already thinking 259 Extra Innings ahead with other members of the Browns and old friends from the remnants of the Negro Leagues, especially the Monarchs, about the possibility of hitting the road again. He became “a globetrotter” figuratively and literally. He announced that he had worked out a deal with Abe Saperstein for the spring and would be appearing along with the Harlem Globetrotters in a barnstorming tour that would feature basketball but also feature Satchel Paige.1 Interests, however, were changing, as were sensitivities. Consciousness was growing in the African American community. Amos ’n’ Andy was starting to draw criticisms from elements in the black community concerned with the negative racial stereotypes that the program fostered. Even the vaunted Harlem Globetrotters were starting to draw criticism from some elements of the community concerned about too much clowning. The winds of change blew strongly. Charles Hamilton Houston’s dream of someday defeating Plessy v. Ferguson was carried forward to its final conclusion in the hands of the NAACP and its lead attorney, and Houston’s former student, Thurgood Marshall. The momentous Brown decision of 1954, striking down Plessy v. Ferguson—at least on paper—did not escape Paige and the other black ballplayers. They discussed the implications of the decision, as did most African Americans and Americans in general. Paige, Buck O’Neil, Goose Tatum, Booker McDaniel, and Frank Duncan always found time to get together in Kansas City and to chat, whether it was at Paige’s home on Twenty-Eighth Street or at their favorite watering hole over on Vine. “You bet we discussed the Brown decision and what it meant to black folk, and what the new dream might be,” Buck O’Neil recounted. “Satchel thought about these things just like the rest of us did, and we talked about it. Sure we did.”2 The vicious slaying the following year of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, angered Paige. He and Lahoma talked about it and commiserated about the value of black life in America. Black folk in every walk of life were shocked, saddened, and outraged by the Till murder. “What they did to the Till boy, I tell you,” O’Neil reflected for himself and on behalf of his friend Paige. “What kind of human beings would do something like that? All of us were angry. NAACP memberships went up that year, I know that. What a place. Good old Mississippi. Good old Mississippi.”3 The 1950s were a trying period in every aspect of Paige’s life. There was no denying the reality of resources, which were starting to dwindle, and Lahoma knew this as well as he did, if not better. She was the one at home with the children while he was barnstorming. She had the support of her...