Essay On Satchel Paige

Baseball, one of America’s most loved sports. It was the game that American’s created. One of the best baseball players was Satchel Paige. He was a black man playing the Negro league of baseball which was where the black men could play because they were segregated from the MLB. But, Satchel Paige helped earned the rights for black men. Satchel pitched so well during the bad times of separated baseball that his Negro League team was beating white MLB teams which no one thought they could do. He was so good that white newspaper writers wrote about him, which was not common in the 1930’s. Satchell Paige helped change the MLB that people know today.

Satchel Paige was one of the best African-American baseball players of all time. He played exceptionally well and he was a great teammate. “The best and fastest pitcher I've ever faced" - Joe Dimaggio. Joe Dimaggio said this about Satchel Paige because he knew how good he was, not many white people thought that African Americans were good at sports and had no respect for the African Americans, but this show Dimaggio was a good guy. In his career, he had 1,653 strikeouts which are about 1,000 more than Aroldis Chapman has. He also has 159 wins in all levels which is pretty good. He was an inspiration to many young African Americans because he was a great guy and a great athlete.

He spent only about five years in school but he spent most of his time during those five years improving his baseball skills. “Paige, a showman at heart, bounced from team-to-team in search of the best paycheck – often pitching hundreds of games a year between regular league assignments and barnstorming opportunities.”- Baseball Hall of Fame. This shows that he worked hard to get a paycheck for him and his family. He played pro baseball, AAA, minors and the negro league for 29 years! That shows he loved the game but that he worked so hard that he played until he was 59 years old, which is very old for a pro