Observations: Paige Probably Appeared At A Park Near You

By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from St. Simons Island, still enjoying fun in the sun with a cigar, a margarita and baseball book at pool-side. Since I’m in a historic setting, this blog is mostly historic.

—NOT A BLANK PAIGE: A long-time resident of St. Simons Island told me that Satchel Paige once pitched an exhibition game on this vacation Valhalla.

No big deal. If anboyd says your city, town, hamlet, village or island never had Satchel Paige pitch in it, check again. The man pitched here, there and everywhere, as long as a large bundle of greenbacks were dangled under his nose.

Before Paige became known as one of baseball’s best all-time pitchers, when he was 13 he was sent to juvinile jail for five years for shoplifting. Five years for shoplifting?

Well, it was in Alabama in 1918 and, of course, Paige was Black.

While there, an attendant named Edward Byrd taught him how to pitch. When he got out he attended a semi-pro Mobile Black Tigers game and asked for a tryout.

They gave him one and he blazed 10 straight fastballs for strikes and the manager asked him, “Do you throw that fast consistently?”

Said Satchel, “No, sir. I do it all the time.”

They signed him to $1 a game, even though his mother, Lula, called baseball, “The devil’s game,” and never once saw him pitch.

Paige went 30-1 for the Tigers and the rest is history.

Of his five years in detention, Paige said “If I’d been left on the streets of Mobile, I’da ended up a big bum, a crook.”

Stories, or tales, about Paige are legendary, many of them apocryphal. It is said that when he pitched for the Birmingham Black Barons he once hit eight straight batters. The eighth victim chased him off the field brandishing his bat.

—SOMETHING BORROWED: There have been only 18 players in MLB history to hit four home runs in a game.

One was Dayton-born Mike Schmidt and hit four for the Phillies against the Chicago Cubs in 1976. His Philadelphia Phillies trailed, 12-1, after three innings, but Schmidt’s four homers helped the Phillies come back and win, 18-16.

At the time, in late April, Schmidt was hitting .167 with one home run. And to do it, he used a borrowed bat belonging to teammate Tony Taylor.

There is a theme there. Two of the other players to hit four homers in a game used borrowed bats.

Willie Mays did it for the New York Giant8 in 1961 with a bat borrowed from Joey Amalfitano. And in 2002, Mike Cameron did it for Seattle with Edgar Martinez’s bat.

Scooter Gennett (2017) is the only Cincinnati Reds player to do it and he used his own bat.

But two players did it against the Reds —Bobby Lowe (1894) and Mark ‘Hard Hittin’ Whiten (1993).

When Whiten hit his third in Riverfront Stadium, Reds relief pitcher Rob Dibble was in the bullpen and said, “If I get in there, he ain’t hittin’ no home run off me.”

Dibble got in, faced Whiten. . .and Whiten’s fourth home run landed in the upper deck.

—A HAIRY TALE: When Lou Piniella, as a player, was traded to the New Yorrk Yankees, he reported to spring training with long hair, against Yankees policy.

Owner George Steinbrenner called him into his office and told him to cut his hair.

“But I like my long hair,” said Piniella. “And the greatest man to ever walk the earth, Jesus Christ, had long hair.”

Steinbrenner got up and said, “Follow me.” He led Piniella out the door and across the street to the end of a swimming pool.

“Now, if you can walk across that pool without getting wet, you can keep the long hair,” said Steinbrenner.

Piniella had his hair trimmed that night.

—A QUICK EXIT: All baseball followers know that the first professional baseball team was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.

The Wright Brothers — not the aviators, Orville and Wilbur, the baseball players, Harry and George — were each paid $1,500. There were 10 paid players, a payroll of $9,300, the equivalent of $213,000 in today’s money.

What most don’t know is that the team ran out of money after the 1870 season and folded.

Speaking of old-time baseball, there was a game in Cleveland’s Brookside Park in 1914 that reportedly drew an estimated 100,000 fans. . .and it wasn’t a major league game.

It was two nationally-known regional semi-pro superpowers, the Cleveland White Autos against the Omaha Luxers.

Don’t believe it? Me, neither. . .until I looked it up.

—BABE WHO?: The House of David baseball team, a religious touring team that wore beards, was on a midwest tour in 1934 and made a stop in Bismarck, North Dakota, where an extremely strong semi-pro team played.

The House of David started a pitcher named Babe, but it wasn’t Babe Ruth. It was a female Babe, the most famous female athlete at the time and for years to come.

It was Babe Didrickson (Zaharias), who had won two Gold medals and a Silver medal in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympicis. She scored 102 points in a girls high school basketball game and later dominated the women’s pro golf tour for a decade.

But she discovered quickly that her dinky curve and and half-speed fastball didn’t work against paid professional men.

She gave up five runs and five hits in the first inning, her first and last inning pitching against men.

—AND CARRY THE ONE: Whenever a team like the Cincinnati Reds score an absurd number of runs, like 24 against the Baltimore Orioles, fans say, “They better save some of those for tomorrow.”

And when they lose the next two as the Reds did in Miami, they say, “They used ‘em all up in Baltimore.”

Let’s hope commissioner Rob Manfraud isn’t reading this because it is facetious, but he might like it.

New rule: A winning team can carry over it’s extra runs not needed to win a game to the next game.

For example, if the Padres beat the Dodgers, 6-3, they only need four runs to win, 4-3. So they carry those two exrtra runs over and lead the next game, 2-0, when it starts.

In that 24-2 game, the Reds only needed three runs to win, 3-2, so they would carry over 21 runs and start the next game with a 21-0 lead.

Losing teams don’t get any carryover.

Too stupid? Over-the-top stupid, just about as stupid as the ghost runner in extra innings.

—ANOTHER UECKER-ISM: Former catcher/broadcaster/comedian Bob Uecker, on roooming with Henry Aaron in Milwaukee: “Between me and my roommate, we’ve hit 400 Major League home runs.”

—PLAYLIST NUMBER 166: As British poet Edith Sitwell put it: “My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.” (Yes, yes and yes.)

—Poor Little Fool (Ricky Nelson), You Make Me Feel Brand New (Stylistics), This Magic Moment (The Drifters), Run For The Roses (Dan Fogelberg). Rhythm Of The Rain (Cascades), Leader Of the Band (Dan Fogelberg How Will I Know? (Whitney Houston).

Say It Isn’t So (Hall & Oates), Stumblin’ In (Chris Norman & Suzi Quatro), Amarillo By Morning (George Strait), Daniel (Elton John), This One’s For You (Barry Manilow), I Love You (Climax Blues).