Nobody knows exactly when Leroy Robert "Satchel"
Paige was born, but he began playing professional baseball in 1926
and became one of the game's greatest pitchers. The biggest crowd
drawing card of the Negro Leagues, Paige propelled the Pittsburgh
Crawfords to the top the early 1930s, and then did the same for
the Kansas City Monarchs during their four-year reign of Negro American
League pennants from 1939 to 1942. Paige is known as the oldest
"rookie" to play Major League Baseball when he won 6 games
(losing just one) for the 1948 Indians down the stretch of their
1948 run to the World Series championship (Paige was at least 42
years old, and probably older). Paige was elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1971--the first electee from the Negro League Committee.
