Satchel: The Life And Times Of An American Legend (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
We are not sports fans, but two things brought us to this book: we very much enjoyed Larry Tye's SUPERMAN book and we love Bob Bossin's song, THE SECRET OF LIFE ACCORDING TO SATCHEL PAIGE. Satchel Paige was an amazing athlete whose career started in the Jim Crow south of the early 20th century and ended just as black ball players were breaking into the white Major Leagues. In Tye's portrait of him, Paige comes across a hard-working, hard-playing, larger-than-life character who is, despite his faults, a decent, charming and maybe even wise individual.15: MemoryWalk - A pink Cadillac convertible is parked on Mackenzie Street in Fort St. John just outside the Central Department Store. A big chicken comes running around the corner, jumps in the car, and — just as Satchel Paige, dressed in a Cleveland Indians uniform, comes out of the store carrying a bunch of parcels — roars off toward the highway. Paige drops his purchases, takes a baseball out of his pocket, goes into his classic wind p and sends a fastball after the speeding chicken. The ball bounces of the chicken's head. The chicken loses control of the car and crashes into a sign advertising Chubby Chicken in front of the A&W drive-in. What I liked about this book was Satchel Paige, and his story. I knew much of it, but this really filled in the story -- from his time (six years, from 12 to 17)) in a Booker T. Washington-influenced reform/industrial arts school in Alabama, where he learned to pitch, to his latter years in Kansas City with his garden and grandkids. Tye's writing style was not informed enough -- about baseball or about the history of civil rights -- to unify the tales he reported, which was a loss for the book, I felt. But Paige was a towering figure in American sports and culture for decades, and the book makes that plain. I'd recommend it to any baseball fan. What a pitcher!
What do You think about Satchel: The Life And Times Of An American Legend (2009)?
Dont look back someone may be gaining on you. So went the life and the legend of Satchel Paige.
—Shannon
A 5+ for the research, but a 2 for the writing.
—Rdawnp
