Leroy "Satchel" Paige was born in Mobile, Alabama, on July 7, 1906, though he kept his exact age a mystery for much of his life. As a boy he carried suitcases at a train station for tips, where a friend gave him the nickname that stayed with him. After a stay at Alabama's Mount Meigs reform school, where he sharpened his pitching, he began his professional career in 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League.
Segregation kept Black players out of the major leagues, so the Negro Leagues and barnstorming tours formed the highest level of baseball open to him. Paige moved among teams including the Birmingham Black Barons and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, with whom he compiled records of 32-7 and 31-4 in 1932 and 1933. He also pitched in North Dakota, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Caribbean winter leagues, sometimes throwing hundreds of games a year. With the Kansas City Monarchs beginning in 1939, he helped the team win four consecutive Negro American League pennants and won three games in the 1942 Negro World Series sweep of the Homestead Grays.
On his 42nd birthday, July 7, 1948, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed him to a major-league contract. Paige debuted two days later as the oldest rookie the sport had seen. He went 6-1 with a 2.48 earned-run average down the stretch as Cleveland won the pennant and the World Series, and he became the first African American pitcher to appear in a World Series game when he worked two-thirds of an inning in Game 5.
He pitched for Cleveland again in 1949, then spent three seasons with the St. Louis Browns, earning two All-Star Game selections. His final major-league appearance came on September 25, 1965, when he pitched three scoreless innings for the Kansas City Athletics at age 59.
In 1971, Paige became the first electee of the Hall of Fame's Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues. Officials initially planned to display his plaque separately from previous inductees; after public criticism, they announced in July that it would hang in the main hall.
Paige died on June 8, 1982, in Kansas City. Cool Papa Bell described the pitching in plain terms: "He could throw the ball right by your knees all day."
