1906-1982
Baseball Player

Born Thirty Years Too Early.

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was the greatest pitcher of the 1930s. White and black players of the era alike attested to that fact. No player since Babe Ruth was a bigger box-office draw, and Paige was every bit a showman, a man who would clear the field and pitch to batters with no one behind him. Yet, because of the racist policy of baseball, Paige had to wait until he was forty-two years old, in 1948, to become the first African American to pitch in the big leagues, though he frequently played with and against white players in off-season barnstorming tours, including such admirers as Joe DiMaggio and Dizzy Dean.

Pitching Everywhere.

Paige was known widely not only for his durability and blazing, buzzing "Bee Ball" but also because he pitched wherever he could draw an audience throughout the...