If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige

by Donald Spivey

If You Were Only White explores the legacy of one of the most exceptional athletes ever—an entertainer extraordinaire, a daring showman and crowd-pleaser, a wizard with a baseball whose artistry and antics on the mound brought fans out in the thousands to ballparks across the country. Leroy “Satchel” Paige was arguably one of the world’s greatest pitchers and a premier star of Negro Leagues Baseball. But in this biography Donald Spivey reveals Paige to have been much more than just a blazing fastball pitcher.

Spivey follows Paige from his birth in Alabama in 1906 to his death in Kansas City in 1982, detailing the challenges Paige faced battling the color line in America and recounting his tests and triumphs in baseball. He also opens up Paige’s private life during and after his playing days, introducing readers to the man who extended his social, cultural, and political reach beyond the limitations associated with his humble background and upbringing. This other Paige was a gifted public speaker, a talented musician and singer, an excellent cook, and a passionate outdoorsman, among other things.

Paige’s life intertwined with many of the most important issues of the times in U.S. and African American history, including the continuation of the New Negro Movement and the struggle for civil rights. Spivey incorporates interviews with former teammates conducted over twelve years, as well as exclusive interviews with Paige’s son Robert, daughter Pamela, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and John “Buck” O’Neil to tell the story of a pioneer who helped transform America through the nation’s favorite pastime.

Maintaining an image somewhere between Joe Louis’s public humility and the flamboyant aggression of Jack Johnson, Paige pushed the boundaries of segregation and bridged the racial divide with stellar pitching packaged with slapstick humor. He entertained as he played to win and saw no contradiction in doing so. Game after game, his performance refuted the lie that black baseball was inferior to white baseball. His was a contribution to civil rights of a different kind—his speeches and demonstrations expressed through his performance on the mound.

Genres: Sports

376 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2012

Reviews

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love baseball, and I love the history of baseball. Satchel Paige is one of the legendary pitchers of the sport, even though racism prevented him from playing in the Major Leagues until over 20 years after he debuted for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1927. This biography follows his entire life and career, and is apparently very well researched (I read it as an audiobook, so I could not look up any of the footnotes or sources). The author is clearly enamored of Paige and his legend, though (and to be fair, so am I!), and he doesn't shy away from his subject's philandering ways even while married before his final wife. Personally, I would've liked a longer book, as a few times Spivey sort of handwaves how a baseball season went, and I thought there was room for deeper discussions of some of the issues that arose.

All that said--Paige was an amazing player forced to play in an era where Jim Crow reigned, and he always demanded his worth (honestly, he's a great case study for any sports-labor historians for a pre-Curt Flood figure). But his career is quite "messy," bouncing between different teams and leagues (at one point he plays a couple seasons for a Bismarck, North Dakota, semipro team, and another year, for dictator Trujillo in the Dominican Republic). I thought the book did a great job untangling some of that messiness. The "black vs. white" barnstorming tours with Dizzy Dean and later Bob Feller were also great reads, and I think important for promoting the eventual integration of baseball. Spivey also spends some time on the impact of integration on Negro leagues baseball, showing the impact on the "left behind" players and teams and leagues (I liked some of the suggestions of bringing in the then-current teams into the major leagues entirely or as minor league feeders, but obviously that never happened). The 1948 debut of Satchel Paige on the Cleveland team was great (and last year I read Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin which covered that season), and his general longevity as a player was frankly astonishing, even taking into account the publicity-stunt angle.

Unfortunately one aspect I didn't quite like with the book was some of the writing and repetitiveness--especially by the end, the overuse of the phrase "master hurler" was really starting to get to me.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best baseball biographies I have read. I read the biography of Satchel Paige written by journalist Larry Tye several years ago, but this biography by University of Miami historian Donald Spivey is definitely more useful for readers who want to understand the legacy of this amazing pitcher. Spivey explains all of the obstacles that Paige encountered in his life, from being born into a "dirt poor" family as one of 12 siblings in Mobile, Alabama, to spending several years in a juvenile detention facility, to being denied the use of hotels as he traveled with teams in the Negro Leagues. Despite all of this, Paige gave the lie to the idea of racial inferiority because he was arguably the best pitcher of his time of any race. The evidence of this is overwhelming. Paige dominated hitters from the 1920s to the 1950s, both African-American and white, and set a record that has still never been broken by pitching in a major league game at age 59. No less than Joe DiMaggio called him the best pitcher he had ever faced. By conquering all of the obstacles set in his path, Paige demonstrated more powerfully than almost anybody else that African-Americans could "strike out Jim Crow."

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just Finished #reading If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige by Donald Spivey. It was a great read about a great life. I tweeted earlier about how great the play by play was on the 34 all star game and that continued throughout the book.

There are several games which are noted in this biography, including his pitching in the pennant race for the Indians in 48, and the legendary stuff with Josh Gibson. It was nice reading about his slow walk to the mound, the trash talking and the striking them out looking.

I'm not reading this as a history project so I'm not going to dwell on the what ifs and the sad parts of the story. I will say that its amazing to read about someone with that kind of talent.

I mean as a kid, he didn't want to snap chicken's necks so he would throw rocks to make it a more respectable death. And he was on target. And its only right that someone with his story has some suspense behind it. Dude thought he was done in 38, and went for at least 15 more.

[Hal Rundle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read. As a lover of baseball I am amazed that I never heard much of Leroy Paige growing up. He pitched in Kansas City and St. Louis, the two largest cities in my birth state and yet he was never mentioned in my youth. The greatest pitcher of all time, recognized as such by Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams, and I grew up not knowing anything about him. This is an excellent book about baseball and about what black Americans had to put up with then and even now. This is a wonderful source for anyone studying race relations or simply baseball history.

[Michael A. Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good biography that started out a bit slow, but picked up quickly. Copiously sourced and well annotated.

[Tom Buske · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good thorough biography of the long career of legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. The books borders on hagiography on occasion but is still a very solid effort kin an attempt to understand one of baseball's all-time great players.

[Sherman Jenkins]

One of the best biographies regarding one of America's greatest pitchers.

[Michael Thimsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid biography. I was surprised at how often Paige did get the opportunity to play against white major league players during this barnstorming days and you have to credit his peripatetic ways with the ultimate spread of baseball's popularity to the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada. There is also an underlying sadness to this book as one can't help but sigh and imagine the numbers he would have put up if he had been allowed in the major leagues from day one. If his fastball was truly over one hundred miles per hour, he would be dominant in today's game as well.