Don't Look Back

On this day in 1956, 57,000* people crowded into the Orange Bowl in Miami to watch a AAA minor-league baseball game between the Miami Marlins and Columbus (Ohio) Jets.  It was the largest crowd* in minor-league history.  Why were they there?  To see fifty year old Satchel Paige pitch.  He won 6-2, pitching into the 8th inning and hitting a three-run double.

But why Satchel Paige?

Satchel Paige's story encompasses the story of race in America in the 20th century.  A man excluded from major league baseball during the prime of his career became in his later years a much beloved figure, a continuing marvel to ball fans and an inspiration to the older demographic.

As MB Roberts noted on ESPN.com:

"If more is better, then Satchel Paige was the best.
He threw more pitches for more fans in more places for more seasons than anyone else did. Black or white. Then or now.

	Satchel Paige amazed barnstorming white major leaguers with his array of pitches.

He threw mostly strikes. He was charismatic. And like the pink, drum-banging bunny who came along later, he just kept going and going and going."

Satchel was born in 1906 (though he liked to play games with reporters about his birth date) and became a star pitcher in the Negro League in the 1920s and 1930s with the Kansas City Monarchs.  Major league baseball had been segregated since 1887 when Cap Anson, the star player and manager of the Chicago White Sox, made it clear he would not allow his team to take the field to play any team with black players.  Despite some efforts over the years by people like John McGraw (manager of the New York Giants) the color bar remained in place.