The Traveling Man Goes to Portland

By David Marasco

The year was 1961. In that expansion year the baseball world watched as Mantle and Maris chased the Babe's record. But not all was good in baseball. In Portland, the Beavers of the Pacific Coast League were buried in the standings. While glory was well beyond their reach, on most days less than five games separated the eighth place team from the fourth place team. With a little push, they could climb their way through the ranks. However, there was a darker storm cloud above the Beaver's horizon. While finishing in last place the year before, they had drawn only 116,000 in paid attendance. This was a frightful number in a 154 game season, and in 1961 the figures were on only a slightly better pace. The management of the Beavers felt that a partial solution to these problems was a man in his mid-fifties, that man was the great Satchel Paige.

Satchel Paige had last pitched minor league baseball in 1958 with the Miami franchise of the International League. According to his autobiography, he spent 1959-61 barnstorming around the country. An article in the Oregonian confirms this and claims that Paige had just starred in a Negro League World Series in Yankee Stadium. A later article states that he had pitched in all 83 games that the Kansas City Monarchs had played that year. In any case, on August 22, 1961, Bill Sayles, the GM of the Beavers announced that Paige had agreed to join the team.

Paige first pitched for the Beavers in the second game of a double-header at Seattle on August 27. In this game, Paige started, but only went four innings before being lifted for a pinch- hitter. He was only scored upon in the first. After Paige had recorded two outs, the next batter reached on an error. A walk followed by a triple accounted for two unearned runs. Paige finished the day with three strikeouts to only two walks. While the Beavers were able to tie the score (and thus rescue Paige from a loss in his first outing), they lost the game by a score of 3-2.

The next opponents that Paige faced were the Spokane Indians. Paige started in the second game of a twin-bill at Spokane August 30, and once again pitched only four innings. He started off poorly, giving up a bloop double to start the game, and then threw away a comebacker for an error and an unearned run. He survived the inning, but was relieved after the fourth. By the fourth he had run out of gas, and had given up a single, followed by a walk and a pair of singles, all of which amounted to two more runs. When Paige did not come out for the fifth, his team was down 3-2. The Beavers would win the game 9-8, once again getting Paige off of the hook for a loss. In this game he vented his frustration with the umpires by throwing a resin bag 15 feet in the second inning. Paige went on record claiming that the umps were not giving him the corners. The umpires defended themselves by claiming that the calls he had gotten while barnstorming were not going to be the same as the ones he saw while pitching in the PCL. Also, they claimed that his hesitation pitch (which was banned by the American League) was fairly close to a balk.

Paige's third start came on the Vancouver Mounties' home closer. Paige gave up only two runs, one in the first by a triple and a sacrifice fly, and one in the third on a wild-pitch third strike followed by a triple. Paige pitched very well, striking out 7 while giving up 4 hits and walking none. Satchel left after six with a 3-2 lead, but Frank Barnes could not hold the Mounties. Although the Beavers won 4-3 in ten, Paige was not awarded a win.

Paige finally pitched in Portland on September 7, facing Spokane. Paige left after 7 innings down by a score of 2-4 and would have been credited for a loss if not for some late-inning heroics that won the game for the Beavers 7-4. In the third with two on, Paige gave up his only home run of the season. In the fifth he was touched for a double and a single. The local report mentions that he used his hesitation pitch and that while his control was good (once again no walks), he was not fooling many batters (10 hits, two strikeouts). In the second inning Paige also got a single with the bases loaded. This amounted to one run as the second runner was cut down at the plate.

Paige's final appearance in organized baseball (outside of a 3 inning stint with Kansas City in 1965) was in the second game of a double header against Vancouver on September 10. This was the Beaver's final game of the season. Paige again struck in the second, with another single with bases loaded, this time plating two runs. In the fourth he gave up one run on three straight singles. At this point he left the game. Even though he would not have been given credit for a win, the Beavers once again could not hold Satchel's lead, but rallied to a 6-5 win in the end. Once again, he seemed like he was not fooling many batters with seven hits and only two strikeouts. It appears as if the second time a team met Satchel they had him figured out.

Sadly, there was a great matchup that never occurred. The Spokane Indians had former Dodger great Don Newcombe in their rotation. Newcombe, like Paige, was a pioneer. While the honor of being the first African-American to pitch in integrated baseball was earned by Dan Bankhead, Newcombe and Paige were the marquee African-American pitchers of their day. Newcombe won the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and MVP at various times in a career that saw him help drive the Dodgers to many a World Series. On top of being a very good relief pitcher, Paige would draw large crowds whenever he came to town. Paige had looked forward to their meeting. "Don and I had a lot of dandy duels before we got into organized ball," Paige reported, "I sure will try to beat that man." However, in the August 31 double header that Paige pitched, Newcombe did not take the mound. After Paige had been sent to the showers, Newcombe, a career .271 hitter in the majors, struck out as a pinch hitter. Newcombe started and won the following night. In the September 7 game where Paige started, Newcombe did not enter the game. It wasn't his turn in the rotation, and he was not called upon as a pinch hitter. As a result, the last chance for a matchup between Newcombe and Paige faded into history. This was Newcombe's last year as a pitcher. The following year would find him playing in Japan, but only as a hitter.

How did Paige's presence help to solve the Beaver's problems? Well, as far as wins go, he ended the season at 0-0. Of his five starts, he left three behind in the score, although the Beavers were 4-1 in his games. His ERA was a very good 2.88. The rest of the team had an ERA of 4.42, and the low among pitchers with a large number of innings pitched was 3.66. They finished in fifth place, one game behind San Diego (but a miserable 26 behind champion Tacoma) and three ahead of Hawaii and Spokane. The attendance question seems to have been a more pressing concern. While he did not go very far in most of his games, this was probably by design. Note that he pitched on two days rest three times, and once on four days rest (while some may claim that this was not uncommon in the Negro Leagues, one must remember that Paige was 55 at the time). This seems to be more oriented towards putting fans into seats rather than winning ballgames. How much did Paige help at the gate? Satchel drew crowds of 4763, 4437, 4522, 3613 and 4574. However, these large numbers can be deceiving. The first three occurred on the road, so the added gate was not a great boon to Portland. Even then, each of these games should have had larger than normal attendance as the first two were doubleheaders and the last was a home closer. Of the final two numbers, the first was Paige's first appearance for his home crowd, and the second was a both a double-header and a home closer. While the first three numbers were without comment, the Portland numbers report total attendances, not paid. The Beavers ended the season with a paid attendance of 133,026.

After his time in Portland, Paige went back to barnstorming. He played in the aforementioned Kansas City game in 1965 (at the age of 59) and was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971. He died of a heart attack in 1982.