A bit of his career…
http://www.cmgww.com/baseball/paige/print3.html
He once struck out Rodgers Hornsby 5 times in one game.
Pitched just about every day in his career. And just got better with age.
Why wasn’t he the first black player to play in the “major” leagues?
His age?
He finished his major league career 28-31 with a 3.24 ERA.
He only pitched in the majors from 1948 to 1953, except for a special one-time-only appearance in 1965. Since Rogers Hornsby retired from play in 1937, I doubt Paige ever faced him except maybe as an exhibition.
He was a colorful character, but not one of the all-time greats, by any measure.
Oh City Gent, how little you know about the Negro League’s.
Because of the color barrier, Ol Satch didn’t get to pitch in the majors until his 40’s, and so his career major league stats don’t look too good.
But he is recognized as one of truly great pitchers of all time, thus his election to the Hall of Fame.
Best? Not quite. Just on stats alone a couple of dozen pitchers come to mind that are better (i.e. Ryan, Young, The entire Atlanta Braves Pitching staff 
).
But I will give you that Paige was good, and a ground breaking pitcher.
Most of Satchel Paige’s stats were never recorded in any systematic way. The Baseball Encyclopedia gives him a record in the Negro Leagues of 124 wins and 80 losses in 208 games, but there are many more games and seasons where his records have been lost, not to mention the barnstorming says when he indeed faces major league batters and usually got the best of them.
His major league records were set when he was at least 42 years old. As a rookie, he went 6 and 1 with a 2.48 ERA, which helped Cleveland get into the World Series that year. Pretty good for the oldest player in the sport (at a time when it was very rare for anyone to last until 40).
In 1952, at the age of 46, he was 12-10 with an ERA of 3.07 on a St. Louis Browns team that lost 90 games. He led the league in relief wins and games pitched, was second in saves, and struck out 91 betters in only 138 innings. The only person to put up comparable numbers at that age was Hoyt Wilhelm, who’s in the Hall of Fame, too.
Everyone agrees that by the time Satch made it to the majors, he was past his prime, yet his record at his age was among the best in baseball. His .475 won-lost percentage may not seem like much, but it’s better than the .462 won-lost percentage of the teams he was on (I’m not counting Kansas City).
In short, Paige, at an age when nearly every other ballplayer was retired, was able to become one of the top pitchers of his time. If he did so well in his 40s, it’s hard to argue he was not as good in his 20s and 30s. He is definitely one of the greats.
He’s definitely good, but I don’t see how you can argue that he was the best. There simply isn’t enough data.
When I was in college in the late 1960s, I saw him pitch. It was a special promotion that the owners of the Triple-A Denver Bears came up with. He would pitch for three outs against the visiting team, speak for a few minutes to the crowd, and then pitch against the home team for three outs and then speak again and say good bye.
My father who had seen Paige in his prime and seen most of the great white players up to that time always claimed that Satchel was the greatest pitcher of all time. I had been raised on modern pitchers and really didn’t expect much from this old guy (he was 60+ at the time).
When I left the stadium, I was a convert. That lanky, old, black man embarrassed those major-league bound, hot-shot kids who were young enough to be his grandkids. And they were trying too. As I remember, he faced five hitters to get the first three outs. I think he struck out two. He faced four to get the second set of outs. Once again, I think he struck out two.
The thing what struck me most was his motions on the mound. He body went everywhere then all of a sudden the ball came out. And it seemed like he never delivered the same pitch twice. One time a slurve, another time it was a rainbow pitch with some sort of weird spin, the next it would be a good solid fast ball (for any aged man) and the next it was a curve.
I have seem a number of the great pitchers in my time, Koufax, Drysdale, Ford, Maddox, Seaver, Ryan, McClain, to name just a few, but if Paige lost anything over the years from the days of his prime, to when I saw him (and it is human to do so) he was the greatest.
I would refer to the old joke: The first baseball fan asks, “Do you think Satchel Paige would be any good playing in today’s major leagues?”
Second man: "I don’t know. I suppose he’d probably have a record of, oh…about 12-10…but then again, you’ve got to remember, he’d be 98 years old.
TV
TexasSpur, there are other means of proof besides statistics, even in baseball. Take a look at the comments of Paige’s contemporaries, such as Ted Williams, Bill Veeck and Bob Feller, sometime. I particularly refer you to Williams’ 1966 Hall of Fame acceptance speech and to Veeck’s autobiography “Veeck as in Wreck”. Sorry I don’t have a link, but both of these gentlemen, whose opinions with good reason are widely respected within the game, are effusive in their phrase of Paige’s abilities.
I didn’t argue he was the best. I said he was a truly great pitcher, and the OP called him “one of the best.” The data is scarce, but what there is, is choice. Those who saw him play are unanimous in calling him a great pitcher and it’s rather offensive to ignore the evidence of his ability simply because he wasn’t allowed to play where the numbers would have meant something.
***Sometimes I feel like I will
never stop
Just go forever
Till one fine morning
I’ll reach up & grab me a
handful of stars
& swing out my long lean leg
& whip three hot strikes
burning down the heavens
& look over at God & say
How about that!
— Samuel Allen, "To
Satch" ***
May he live in baseballs memory and rest in peace.
[Mr. Burns]
They let Negroes play baseball?
[/Mr. Burns]
I’m still skeptical about the Rogers Hornsby thing. Plus, Paige may have been old by the time he made it to the majors, but Hornsby was ten years older than Paige, so he was almost certainly way past his prime if he ever faced Paige.
Well, he wasn’t the first because Jackie Robinson was. The man who decided to integrate baseball, Branch Rickey, specifically picked Robinson because he felt Jackie was the right man for the job. Robinson was a highly disciplined, educated, smart young man who served as an officer during the war and happened to be one of the most multitalented athletes of his time; he was also a truly awesome baseball player. (If you can imagine Roberto Alomar, add 15% more offense and defense, and crank up the intensity to the point that you’d be terrified of playing against him, you’ve got Jackie Robinson.)
Rickey felt Robinson could take the bullshit racists would dish out and still play well under pressure; in his words, he needed a man who would be right on the field and off the field. Robinson was right at his peak (28 years old) and so was a likely candidate for success. It worked; Robinson was a spectacular player and took all the abuse they could dish out, and his teammates rallied around him and the Dodgers because a better team. IF you want to pick a point that began the Dodger run of championships from 1947 to 1981, the signing of Jackie Robinson is as good a point as any.
So once Jackie was picked, Satchel couldn’t be first, right?
Paige was old, so Rickey would not have chosen him, but Paige DID come in on the first wave of post-Robinson black players.
Oh, there’s plenty of data. If you can’t at least make an argument for Paige, you really can’t make an argument for anyone…
Check out this article.
While Satchel and Josh Gibson were on the same team, their games were promoted with the pair saying Satchel would strike out the first nine batters and Josh would hit a homer. They usually delivered.
[hijack]
Too bad about Josh, he could’ve hit 61 before Maris, and then some!
[/hijack]