Friday, October 30, 2020
Negro League Centennial
Last Sunday, Major League Baseball teams recognized the hundredth anniversary of Negro League baseball. Each player wore a special centennial crest, with the dates of 1920 to 2020 embroidered on the crest. All teams celebrated the event in a variety of ways.
The league that was established in 1920 was the first structured Negro League that lasted for an extended period. The event served as a great opportunity to inform the public about the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Of the thousands of players who took the diamond to play professional baseball in the negro leagues, forty-nine are still living.
Satchel Paige played in the negro leagues for many years before making his major league debut in 1948, when he was 42 years old. That was a year after Jackie Robinson “broke the colour barrier” in 1947. There was a wonderful movie released a few years ago about Robinson's struggle to become a major leaguer. The brilliant documentary by Ken Burns, simply called “Baseball” also sheds light on the integration of the game, and the obstacles faced by the players.
Born in 1906 in Mobile, Alabama, Paige played his last Major League game for the Kansas City Athletics in 1965, when he was 59 years old. No matter where he went, or wherever he played, Satchel Paige attracted a crowd. One of those occasions took place in the 1950's in Belleville, at the Fair Grounds. He was accompanied by a team of African Americans. Quite often in those games, Paige would walk the bases full, on purpose, then ask his infielders to sit down on the field. He would then strike out the side! It was an unforgettable occasion for this wide-eyed kid!!
Seventeen days before his 12th birthday, he was involved in a rock-throwing incident with a group of white boys from Oakdale School. Following his conviction, he was sentenced to six years at the Alabama Reform School. One of the directors at the school, Reverend Moses Davis, taught him how to pitch. Paige later commented: “I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch. They were not wasted years at all. It made a real man out of me.” I assume they released him in his last year there.
Paige began his professional career in 1924, pitching for the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Southern Negro League. He pitched his last professional game for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League. Early in his career, he was known for his blazing speed. By the time he retired, he had a repertoire of pitches to fool most batters.
Baseball took Paige virtually everywhere the game was played. In 1929, he signed with Santa Clara, in Cuba for $ 100 a game. He had some difficulty learning Spanish, and moved on from there when he could not adequately explain his relationship with a young Cuban lady. Following the Great Depression, he barnstormed the United States, often playing with the legendary Dizzy Dean.
His travels took him to the Dominican Republic in 1937, Mexico in 1938, Puerto Rico and Kansas City in 1939. He pitched in the Negro League World Series in 1942.
Much of the history of Black American baseball has been preserved in the Negro Leagues' Baseball Museum in Kansas City. The greats of the game are featured there: Cool Papa Bell, Larry Doby, Buck O'Neil, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Josh Gibson, Double Duty Radcliffe, to name a few. Of course, several great players from the Negro Leagues had outstanding careers in the Major Leagues. Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins from Chatham, Ontario, did not play in the Negro Leagues. Nonetheless, he is recognized as one of the greatest hurlers in the game.
Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1971. He was 75 when he passed away in 1981.
James Hurst
August 18, 2020.
