July 20, 2006
All About Satchel Page: Five Questions for Dan Gutman Posted by Allen Barra at 10:40 AM EST Dan Gutman is probably the most popular writer of sports fiction for young adults in the country. Among his bestsellers are such as Honus & Me, The Million Dollar Shot, and Satch & Me. Here are five questions concerning Satchel Paige, the philosopher and folk hero who might well have been the greatest pitcher in the game’s history. Check Gutman out at www.dangutman.com.
Did we miss Satchel’s 100th birthday? When did he turn 100?
No one knows for sure, but a likely birth date is July 7, and we’re sure he was born in 1906. Satch himself probably didn’t know for certain.
Satchel Paige seems to have evolved into an American folk hero. Why does he fascinate us now, more than 60 years after his baseball career was winding down?
Satch is one of those figures, like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, who make us wonder “What if . . .” With Dean and Monroe, we wonder what heights they might have attained if they hadn’t died young. With Satch, we wonder what heights he might have attained if he had had the chance to prove himself when he was young. Legend has it he won 2,000 games and pitched 50 no-hitters in the Negro leagues. By the time black players were finally allowed in the majors, he was 42 and long past his prime. Was he the fastest? Was he the best? We’ll never know.
Paige was regarded as a great pitcher, maybe the greatest of his time, not just by his black contemporaries but by many of the white players he faced in barnstorming games. What exactly were “barnstorming games”? Didn’t his teams fare well against those featuring great white pitchers such as Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller?
Back in the good old days before TV, black and white teams used to travel around the country during the off-season and play exhibition games in small towns. They would attract big crowds, because most people had never seen top players perform. The black teams more than held their own against white major-leaguers, which is evidence that there were a lot of Negro-leaguers who were just as good as major-leaguers, if not better. It should be noted that the black players were certainly more motivated to win, while the white players might have been playing for the extra paycheck. In any case, some baseball fans believe that all pre-1947 major-league records and stats are meaningless, because pitchers like Walter Johnson never had to pitch to great black hitters like Josh Gibson. And hitters like Babe Ruth never had to face a Satchel Paige fastball.
What do you think the existing evidence indicates? Would Satchel have been a star in the big leagues back in the 1930s had he been given a chance? What white pitcher would you compare him to?
Personality-wise, I’d say Satch most resembled Dizzy Dean. Both had a slightly goofy and uneducated yet intelligent way of looking at life. Physically, I’d compare him to Randy Johnson. Both were impossibly tall and skinny—two goony birds. As far as skill level and dominance, Satch was just as good as Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, and Cy Young, plus he had a repertoire of pitches and deliveries like Luis Tiant. But I think that if Satch had been in the majors in his prime, he would have been better than all of them.
Like Yogi Berra, Satch is reputed to have said a lot of famous things, some of which he did say and some of which he didn’t. Of the things he said that he did say, what are your favorites?
”Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
”We don’t stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing.”
”I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I would toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.”
”Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move.”
”Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”
”Money and women. They’re two of the strongest things in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn’t do for anything else. Same with money.”
”Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”
”You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”
”My pitching philosophy is simple; you gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat.”
”I never had a job. I always played baseball.”
”If you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don’t sound good to you, it won’t sound good to no one else.”
And you might want to know about “Satchel Paige’s Rules for Staying Young,” first published in Collier’s magazine in 1953:
Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.
If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society—the social ramble ain’t restful.
Avoid running at all times.
And don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.
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