Tuesday – 16 February 2010
This morning has started off better than yesterday in a number of ways. I’m going to take that as a good omen.

Today is also apparently International Pancake Day.

Last night was rather quiet and low-key: After dinner, and a little TV-watching, SaraRules went to the gym for a swim and I decided that it was an ideal time to take a relaxing soak and do a little reading. Great way to wind down the evening. Later in the evening, I unwrapped LEGO Batman and played through a level. That game is more fun than I expected. (Thanks, SaraRules!)

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s notable person is Satchel Paige:

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige was an American baseball player whose pitching in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend.

Satchel was born Leroy Robert Page to John Page, a gardener, and Lula Page (née Coleman), a domestic worker, in a section of Mobile, Alabama known as Down the Bay. Many ages and birthdates, ranging from 1900 to 1908, were reported for Paige’s birthday. Paige himself was the source of many of these dates. His actual birthdate, July 7, 1906, however, has been known since 1948 when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck traveled to Mobile, Alabama and went with Paige’s family to the County Health Department to obtain his birth certificate.

Two weeks before his twelfth birthday, Paige was arrested for shoplifting. Because this incident followed several earlier incidents of theft and truancy, he was committed to the state reform school, the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama, until the age of eighteen. During more than five years he spent at the Industrial School, he developed his pitching skills under the guidance of Edward Byrd.

After his release, Paige played for several Mobile semi-pro teams. He joined the semi-pro Mobile Tigers where his brother Wilson was already pitching. He also pitched for a semi-pro team named the Down the Bay Boys. A former friend from the Mobile slums, Alex Herman, was the player/manager for the Chattanooga White Sox of the minor Negro Southern League. In 1926 he discovered Paige and offered to pay him $250 per month, of which Paige would collect $50 with the rest going to his mother. Partway through the 1927 season, Paige’s contract was sold to the Birmingham Black Barons of the major Negro National League (NNL). From 1926 until 1947, Paige played for many teams across the U.S. and in Cuba.

When Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, a teammate of Paige, Paige realized that it was for the better that he himself was not the first black in major league baseball. Robinson started in the minors, an insult that Paige would not have tolerated. By integrating baseball in the minor leagues first, the white major league players got the chance to “get used to” the idea of playing alongside black players. Understanding that, Paige said in his autobiography:

“Signing Jackie like they did still hurt me deep down. I’d been the guy who’d started all that big talk about letting us in the big time. I’d been the one who’d opened up the major league parks to colored teams. I’d been the one who the white boys wanted to go barnstorming against.”

Paige, and all other black players, knew that quibbling about the choice of the first black player in the major leagues would do nothing productive, so, despite his inner feelings, Paige said of Robinson, “He’s the greatest colored player I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, on July 7, 1948, with his Cleveland Indians in a pennant race and in desperate need of pitching, Indians owner Bill Veeck brought Paige in to try out with Indians player/manager Lou Boudreau. On that same day, his 42nd birthday, Paige signed his first major league contract, for $40,000 for the three months remaining in the season, becoming the first Negro pitcher in the American League and the seventh Negro big leaguer overall.

Paige played in as many as 2,500 games and is credited with more than 50 no-hitters. He pitched for six seasons in the majors and was the first star of the Negro leagues to be inducted (1971) into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.