An Encounter With The Great Satchel Paige

The Philadelphia Colored Giants came out to LA to live for the winter. It was like barnstorming. They’d pick up extra money. They had a terrific team. A number of them could have played in the big leagues, but no one was scouting or hiring black ball players. Organized Baseball "drew the color line." That was the expression. There were no black players in the major leagues until after World War II when the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson.

One of their great players was Mule Suttles. He was called the black Babe Ruth. He was a giant of a man standing about 6’4" and weighing probably 220 or 230 pounds. In one winter season of no more than fifteen or sixteen games, he hit thirteen home runs. And he hit them like Ruth-high and far.

At short they had a very good player named Willie Wells. He had played with the St. Louis black club. Rap Dixon, a right fielder, had an arm that would put most outfielders of today to shame. He threw line drives to the plate. Their catcher, Biz Mackey, had a big grin like Gabby Hartnett, and he reminded me of Hartnett. He was a fair hitter, a good receiver and he had a good arm. Foster, a good pitcher and a good man, I remember especially because he came to see me at the club house in Chicago when we were playing the Cubs.

There were a number of others who were good, but whose names I can’t remember. That was over fifty years ago.

In 1934 I played in another game against the Royal Giants with the Dizzy Dean All Stars. The great Satchel Paige pitched for the Giants; Dizzy for the All Stars. The game was played at [LA's] Wrigley Field before a crowd of 18,000.

Paige could fire the ball. He and Dean were about the same size, and they both pitched the same way with about the same speed - about 95 MPH. I saved the clipping on that game because I got the only hits off Satchel - a double and a triple. I was real proud. I’d hit a famous pitcher, teed off on the ball. The reason I got a double and a triple off him was that I thought he might have a curve ball. So I looked for the curve. I wasn’t going to try to kill the ball. So I cut down on my swing and waited to see how he was going to pitch me.

First he pitched me high, then he raised it, then he brought it down. No curves. He finally got one down a little too low and I hit it off the center field fence. When I hit the double, he followed me around for a second, looked at me and said, "How’d you hit that one?" I got a kick out of that. Satchel went back to the mound and struck out the next three batters in the order, Camilli, Demaree and Lillard. In the fourth inning I got a triple and he did the same thing. He followed me with his eyes to third. He struck out seven in four innings, and then left the game to save his arm for a game against the White Kings on Sunday, or so the reporters said.

Dizzy Dean struck out seven in seven innings and left the game with the score 3-2 in favor of the All Stars. The All Stars won in the ninth 5-4, getting a run off Chet Brewer. He was the pitcher for the Royal Giants the day I hit three home runs and got into trouble with Judge Landis.

[Editor's Note: Wally Berger is one of the overlooked stars from the 1930s. His rookie home run mark stood until it was tied by Frank Robinson in 1956, and then broken by Mark McGwire in 1987.]