Satchel Paige

Pro team(s)

Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns, Kansas City Athletics (Negro Leagues: Birmingham Black Barons, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Kansas City Monarchs, and others)

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Baseball Hall of Fame

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was born on July 7, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama — the son of a gardener and a washerwoman, one of twelve children in a family that struggled for everything they had. He was sent to reform school as a boy, where he learned to pitch. What he became over the next four decades is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of American sport. In the Negro Leagues — where he was forced to compete because Major League Baseball refused to integrate — Paige became the most celebrated pitcher in the country, perhaps the most celebrated athlete in America during the 1930s and 1940s. His fastball was described as unhittable by every hitter who faced him. His collection of pitches — the "Hesitation Pitch," the "Bat Dodger," the "Midnight Creeper," the "Midnight Rider," the "Long Tom," and others — made him a showman and a legend simultaneously. He barnstormed across the country and faced white major leaguers in exhibition games, dominating them as completely as he dominated everyone else. When the color barrier finally fell in 1948, Paige was already 42 years old — but he went 6-1 with a 2.48 ERA for the Cleveland Indians, helping them win the World Series. He later pitched for the St. Louis Browns and, at age 59, threw three scoreless innings for the Kansas City Athletics in 1965 — the oldest man ever to pitch in a major league game. His lifetime record in organized professional baseball was 28-31, but in his full career across the Negro Leagues and barnstorming, contemporaries estimated he pitched in over 2,500 games and won approximately 2,000 of them. He was the first player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame from the Negro Leagues, in 1971. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama.