I just finished reading Satchel Paige’s autobiography. Satchel Paige is an old Negro League pitcher who pitched for forty years, making his major league debut as the oldest rookie ever at age 42. His autobiography is one of those “as told to” affairs, meaning it was largely dictated by Paige and therefore full of amusing colloquialisms. I’ve been folding the pages down on the best passages, so now I present: “Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever”: The Amusing, Brief, Anecdotal Version.
But those no-hitters don’t make you rich. Not in semi-pro ball. I’d get about a buck a game when enough fans came out so we made some money after paying for expenses. When there wasn’t enough money, they gave me a keg of lemonade.
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It seems funny but there were some of the fans who even got mad because I was pitching so good. I won’t forget at one game I was on the bench between innings and I heard this pretty little gal behind me talking to her boy friend. “Pitch and pose, pose and pitch, that’s all he does,” she complained. “It almost makes you mad.”
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I was so mad my stomach started crying and I had to belch to ease the miseries.
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Even then everybody was saying I was a hundred years more than I was. I guess when you’re long and thin and sit quiet, they think you’re ready for that embalming man.
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Lots of baseball men are mighty fine hunters and they got pretty good eyes for skeet, but there wasn’t any of them that could stay up with Ol’ Satch on the skeet ramble.
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With those lights, Mr. Wilkinson’s teams could get in an awful lot of baseball. I remember once we played three games in one day. We had a game in the morning and then another one in the afternoon and switched on the lights for a game that same night. I pitched the morning game and won. I was going to rest in the afternoon, but we got into a little trouble and I relieved in about the seventh and pitched the last three innings. We won. That night I pitched the whole ball game and we won again. There ain’t many who can say they won three games in one day. I know some ballplayers that don’t win that many all season.
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(About his kids): The next one was in 1951. That was Linda Sue.
I was just as glad to have Linda Sue as I was about the first ones. Little girls are mighty cute things, just like big girls.
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“You think you have another year or two left before you quit? that reporter asked.
“Everybody asks me when I’m gonna quit. Well, I’m beginnin’ to ask myself now. People say my arm is made of whale-bone and I’m starting to believe them. But as long as I can fog ‘em past those batters, I’ll be in there. You see, I love baseball and I love to pitch.”
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We were just talking and Ned asked me what my best relief job was. Now I’ve had a lot of great ones, but that boy was so serious I just couldn’t resist that old temptation.
“That was before I got into pro ball,” I told him. “We was in the ninth and was leadin’, one to nothin’. The first man up topped the ball and beat the throw. The second man bunted and it looked like it was going foul, but it didn’t. Then the third man up walked. Our pitcher had the fourth guy three balls and two strikes and my manager called on me.”
“What happened?” Ned asked, real serious.
“Well, I had a ball with me in the dugout and I just dropped it in my pocket. Then I got the game ball from the pitcher I was relieving. When I went back to the resin bag I got that other ball out of my pocket and had me two of them then.”
“Yeah? What’d you do then?”
“I just threw those two balls at the same time, one to first and one to third. I picked off both runners and my motion was so good the batter fanned. That was three outs.”
Ned wouldn’t talk to me for a whole day after that.
