"Satchel Paige, judged on his ability as a moundsman, undoubtedly would have covered himself with glory in anybody’s league in his heyday. But, Satchel soon learned that he could make more money as a showman than he could ever hope to draw as a brilliant flinger. The result was that the redoubtable Kansas City Monarch ace turned his slab assignments into a combination vaudeville act and pitching performance." Such was the observation of Sam Lacy, Sports Editor for the Afro-American Newspapers, as he speculated on the big league chances of Negro Leagues stars in the 1945 Negro Baseball Pictorial Year Book. Lacy was not alone in his disdain for the more colorful aspects of Paige’s pitching performances. Many black sportswriters, and even a considerable number of league players, felt strongly that Paige posed a hindrance to the advancement of black players into the major leagues by allowing his colorful antics to draw attention away from the solid baseball that typified play in the two Negro major leagues.
Certainly, Satchel Paige was a showman. However, the extent to which his affinity for showmanship detracted from the quality of his pitching or diminished the stature of professional black baseball in the eyes of the general public is debatable. What is beyond question, however, is that Satchel Paige, to a degree beyond all others involved in the Negro Leagues, was a catalyst for the ultimate integration of the major leagues, and his showmanship was the vehicle that carried the black ballplayer out of the obscurity of segregation and into the national limelight.
Before the appearance of Satchel Paige there were many hearoes in black baseball. Most historians agree that in quality of play such early black stars as John Henry Lloyd, Bruce Petway and Christobel Torrienti were the equals of their white contemporaries, Joe Jackson, Nappie LaJoie, Eddie Collins and Honus Wagner. But, how many baseball fans recognize the names of these black baseball greats today? Not many. Sadly, though, even fewer white fans were familiar with these black stars during the height of their careers. Such was the strict character of segregation. White newspapers simply did not recognize the existence of black baseball during the early decades of the century, and no performance by a black player, no matter how impressive, would have been sufficient to gain the attention of a press dedicated to the proposition of separate but equal.
In the 1920s America’s perceptions of professional baseball and its players were transformed by the charismatic personality of Babe Ruth. Interest in major league baseball soared as Ruth’s homerun prowess captured headlines in newspapers all across America, the big city dailies and small town clarions alike. For boys everywhere dreams of baseball stardom fueled competition on sandlots and school ball yards. Both in the cities and rural towns local businesses fielded teams. And, in the hope of besting their neighboring hamlets, municipalities carved out budgets to support adult teams and sponsor inter-city tournaments. This phenomenal enthusiasm for baseball translated into turnstile dollars for team owners. Independent promoters quickly responded to opportunity and set about meeting the public demand for baseball, baseball and more baseball!
Each year at the conclusion of the World Series barnstorming teams comprised of major league stars were organized and paraded across the country in a series of exhibition matches, drawing large crowds and raking in enormous revenues. On a less grand scale, dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of good, but not major league quality, squads traveled the backroads of America performing for enthusiastic rural fans who had no access to the major league game.
The baseball frenzy that swept the country during the 1920s was not confined to the white population, nor were white entrepreneurs alone in their desire to capitalize on the growing market. But, black team owners and promoters were at a distinct disadvantage. Of course, the major black teams, particularly the teams of the Negro National League and such other organized associations as the Negro Southern League, could draw black audiences in the cities. Some teams, like the Kansas City Monarchs and Chicago American Giants had the luxury of large, black populations from which to draw audiences in their home cities. But, most Negro teams did not enjoy such a luxury and struggled to exist on such revenues as could be generated from smaller, less afluent black communitites. Not content to so limit the potential of their baseball enterprises severak innovative promoters found a way to make black baseball attractive to white customers – even white, Southern baseball fans.
By the 1920s black stage entertainers had learned that they could draw substantial white audiences in the South if their singing, dancing and dramatic performances were veiled with comedy. White audiences that could not accept black talent on its own artistic merits were more than willing to be entertained by black song and dance as long as the performers did not pretend to be the artistic equal of serious, white performers. Did the comedy cast the Negro in the character of a social inferior? Of course. Did the comedy reinforce unflattering stereotypes and racial prejudice? Certainly. But, of paramount importance to many black performers and promoters, these performances drew paying customers and supported the performing troupe. For more than forty years such aggregations as the Silas Green Minstrels, Florida Blossoms Minstrels, and F.S. Wolcott’s Rabbits Foot Revue profitably toured the South mixing artistry with comedy.
By the late 1920s, and with increasing vigor during the early 1930s, numerous black baseball promoters sought to duplicate the success of minstrelsy with a marriage of baseball and comedy. The Miami Clowns (later known as the Ethiopian Clowns) found quick acceptance by white audiences in Florida by painting their faces in the manner of African tribesmen and performing a series of antics both prior to and during ballgames. The Zulu Cannibal Giants, a roduct of Louisville, Kentucky, carried the African theme even further, donning grass skirts, batting with large wooden war clubs, and featuring ball playing comedians with names like Impo and Limpopo. Brown’s Tennesse Rats, and a host of other clubs, quickly formed and took to the barnstorming trail. The success of this brand of baseball was so immediate that it quickly drew the interest of w hite booking agents and promoters like Syd Pollock who acquired the Clowns in the early 1930s and parlayed the team’s comedic show into a prime money maker for more than thirty years.
Comedy was the vehicle that first brought white patrons through the gates to see black baseball games. But, few would argue that comedic baseball did anything for the advancement of legitimate Negro baseball. Without question, teams like the Ethiopian Clowns presented a quality brand of baseball. The team offered fans the talent of numerous competent professional players such as David Barnhill (signed by the New York Giants organization in the early 1950s). Barnhill and other players who later excelled in legitimate Negro Leagues play (and some in organized baseball) also appeared on the roster of the Zulu Cannibal Giants and other comedy teams during the 1930s. But, the comedy routines and amusing "darkie" imagery was sufficient to perpetuate the white fan’s perception of black baseball as little more than a show.
Very few who witnessed the performances of the early comedy teams would have even thought to seriously compare the baseball competence of the black performers with the players of white, professional baseball. Promoters of black baseball had succeded in bringing white patrons into the ballparks, but had seriously failed in drawing attention to the major league talents of professional Negro baseball players. This job fell upon the shoulders of Satchel Paige, a charismatic young man of enormous talent whose emergence as a nationally recognized figure called attention to the great reservoir of talent in the Negro Leagues.
Satchel Paige was a colorful and engaging man, but his personal qualities would certainly have been insufficient to promote his rise in the world of Negro baseball absent his remarkable talent for baffling opposing hitters. From his earliest days with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts, Birmingham Black Barons and Nashville Elite Giants the young Paige never failed to turn the heads of black baseball fans who witnessed his prodigious talents. The black press found his humor quotable, and his flamboyant manner and good natured braggery made for entertainy newspaper copy. Negro baseball, it appeared to the black press, had in Satchel Paige the rare asset that Babe Ruth had been for the white major leagues – a humorous, colorful, engaging bragger with a child-like personality, who just happened to be able to justify his boasts on the field of play. Satchel Paige was a great showman. He was also a great pitcher!
When had any pitcher been so outrageously arrogant and taunting as to send the infield to the dugout while he faced the best hitters in the opposition lineup? What could make such a pitcher seem larger than life more than ceremoniously striking out the side? Larger than life – a fitting description of the Babe and, for the first time, a fitting description of an emerging star on the black diamond.
Promoters of black baseball sold Satchel Paige in ways never before attempted in the marketing of black baeball. Black teams had been playing all-white "all-stars" in exhibition games since the early 1920s, but these contests had been staged primarily for consumption by black audiences eager to see how their boys would fare against their white counterparts. But now, like prize fight promoters challenging all comers to stay in the ring with their man, promoters presented Paige as the standard to which white major leaguers were challenged to rose. Surely, white audiences were promised showmanship and entertainment, but they were also promised that theier white stars would meet their match in straight up competition. This promise embodies a challenge that white fans could not resist. They simply had to see for themselves if this black wonder was as advertised. And see for themselves they did.
Paige’s success in head on contests against white stars became legendary and filled the coffers of exhibition game promoters through the 1930s and 40s. More importantly for the Negro Leagues as a w hole, as Paige’s fame grew, white patrons by the thousands filled ballparks across America, even in the South, to see Satchel Paige perform, regardless of the competition. Most often, other Negro Leagues teams provided the competition. Thus, the benefits of Paige’s popularity were bestowed not only on the man himself, but upon all Negro Leagues players who were provided with a venue to display their talents to the majority population. Satchel may have been the attraction that brought white fans to black games, but his supporting cast also had their time in the public eye.
Ric Roberts (Washington Edition sports editor, Pittsburgh Courier, during the 1940s) assessing the status of black baseball and the black fan’s hope for integration of the game observed in 1945, "Aside from the purely personal aspects of play for pay, the fundamental measuring rod for progress in baseball must be computed in terms of the individual clubs. Here again the legendary Paige has contributed, becuase the daily press and nationally circulated magazines have dramatized him in the same breath with Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams or Marty Marion. Thus endorsed by the national publications, he has become a symbol of excellence within his own group and stepped up payrolls and box office figures with his presence. Washington was, for example, an average 3,000 fan town until Paige’s visits, and good promotion work hiked it to well near a 10,000 fan average.
Satchel Paige, it is estimated, pitched in more than 2000 baseball games during the 1930s and 1940s. He pitched in Yankee Stadium and Comiskey Park, and he pitched in hundreds of minor league and public ballparks in cities and small towns from Newnan, Georgia to Roswell, New Mexico to Walla Wall, Washington. He was, undoubtedly, the most traveled man in all of sports. And, everywhere he went he exposed white Americans to the excellence of the professional black ballplayer. Had Paige been blessed only with a lively arm and outstanding pitching ability he would surely have performed in the same obscurity as the several black hurlers before him whom most observers count as his match.
Had Paige removed the humor and flamboyance from his performances his fame would have been contained within the world of black baseball fans. Gladly, the "combined vaudeville act and pitching performance" of which Sam Lacy complained ultimately carried Satchel Paige and the other stars whom Paige’s appearances showcased from the obscurity of sepia baseball into the main tent.
Some have suggested that the brand of showmanship exhibited by Paige during the height of his career was no less demeaning than the grass skirted performances of the Zulu Cannibal Giants – that Paige perpetuated the tradition of Negro clowning to the detriment of the hard working players who daily struggled for recognition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Satchel Paige, by virtue of his tremendous pitching talent and often demonstrated ability to defeat the best that the white major leaguers had to offer, was cast as the rebel who challenged the claimed superiority of major league baseball. His boastings taunted the white fan to buy a ticket to see his boasts tested. His success could not help but impress. His showmanship and engaging manner merely served to make palatable, entertaining and to some degree amusing, the inability of the most talented white performers to gain any consistent advantage over him.
Certainly, there were many white fans (and, quite a number of black enthusiasts, as well) who were not ready for integration of the major leagues when Branch Rickey called upon Jackie robinson to wear the Dodger uniform. Even the great Paige could not erase a hundred years of racial hatred and bigotry. But, even those who opposed Rickey’s great experiment did not base their opposition on a belief that the black player was an inferior performer. The baseball world knew better. The great wellspring of talent bubling up from the Negro American and National leagues had been presented to many thousands of fans, black and white, through the performances of Satchel Paige.
In fairness to Sam Lacy, it is undoubtedly true that Satchel Paige placed lower priority than most Negro Leaguers on those qualities which baseball men have forever held dear – team loyalty, playing for love of the game, etc. – protecting first and foremost his interest in the box office bonanza that his career represented. Ironically, it was Paige’s maverick character that has since 1947 ensured that black players are no longer required to play solely for love of the game.
