Satchel Paige Quotes
120 Satchel Paige Quotes
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Nancy, nobody, but nobody, hits Satch’s fastball.
Satchel Paige
I’ll come to Cleveland and show you. I’m the best pitcher in baseball.
Satchel Paige
[On Bill Veeck] I’m gonna pitch my arm off for that fellow.
Satchel Paige
[On a completely untrue story that claimed that some of his Indians’ teammates were unfriendly to him] Now why would somebody want to write something like that?
Satchel Paige
I wasn’t never exactly, but I was as close to that feelin’ as I could be. I never had a feelin’ like it before. ‘Course I had never pitched in the majors before.
Satchel Paige
I knew all those folks in the stands were studying me. I don’t mind that. Folks have been eyeing me all my life. But these folks were different. I could feel it. They were sort of like people at a circus. They were asking themselves, ‘Can that old man really pitch?’
Satchel Paige
I’m not old, but I knew they’d be ready to laugh at Mr Bill Veeck if I didn’t make good.
Satchel Paige
I know I can pitch. I been stopping major leaguers all my life.
Satchel Paige
I was the first colored pitcher ever to throw in the Stadium.
Satchel Paige
I used my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup – and my no windup. I used my step-n-pitch-it, my sidearm throw, and my bat dodger. The Browns didn’t do no damage in the two innings I worked.
Satchel Paige
The crowd was surprised when I struck out the side. I wasn’t, I did that lots of times. And I expect to do it more, too.
Satchel Paige
You don’t gamble when you has confidence, and that’s what I got. I knew I could outsmart batters. I knew I could help the Indians.
Satchel Paige
[On Bill Veeck] He didn’t need me as no gate attraction. He needed me to help win the pennant.
Satchel Paige
Look Mr Boudreau, I’ll do anything’ you want. I’ll go out on the field in my street clothes and pitch. You can see for yourself. If I’m no good I’ll buy my own train ticket out of here. You’re under no obligation. …. I threw 50 pitches. Only four missed the strike zone.
Satchel Paige
I read a headline the other day, ‘Satchel’s Age – The $64 Question.’ The way things are going’ now pretty soon they’ll be givin’ wash machines, vacuum cleaners, automobiles and a year’s vacation ‘round the world for the right answer.
Satchel Paige
My mother didn’t tell nobody my age. She had eleven children. How can she keep track of all them birthdays…
Satchel Paige
I can show you a man who says I’m over 60. Everybody’s got a different number. They play bingo with me.
Satchel Paige
Sports writers always ask my age. Nobody believes the right number when they do read it. I tell ‘em I’m 45 or 50 or 60 – whatever they want me to tell ‘em. I suppose, when you come down to it, it’s my fault everybody thinks I so old. They want me to be old so I give ‘em what they want. Seems they get a bigger kick out of an old man throwing strikeouts.
Satchel Paige
Mr Bill Veeck and Mr Boudreau say they don’t care if I’m 99 or 199 as long as I can pitch. Ain’t that the important thing?
Satchel Paige
It kind of hurts me when folks say I’m an old man…
Satchel Paige
My birthday was September 18. That made me 40. Isn’t that where life begins? I’ll have to tell my arm.
Satchel Paige
[When asked how old he really was] As old as [Indians owner] Mr Veeck wants me to be.
Satchel Paige
[On his pitching ability able to] Nip frosting off a cake.
Satchel Paige
[When he was named American League Rookie of the Year] What year?
Satchel Paige
[On his ‘The Be Ball’ baseball pitch] It be where I want it to be.
Satchel Paige
[In the Negro Leagues in 1971 when he was inducted into Cooperstown] There were many Satchels, there were many Joshes.
Satchel Paige
[On going over to the Star’s dugout after he won the game 3-1] Go over to the barber shop and tell them about this.
Satchel Paige
[On thinking about retirement in 1948 when nearing 44 years of age but later changed he mind when he received another baseball offer] I was sick of hopping around. My mind was made up.
Satchel Paige
[At 75 years of age at a reunion suffering from emphysema and breathing through a portable oxygen pack] At my age, I’m glad to be anywhere.
Satchel Paige
For a guy who’d thrown better than two thousand professional games, that funny feeling in my stomach was a mighty unusual thing. But this was a mighty unusual game for me.
Satchel Paige
[Just after his forty second birthday] Two days later I got into my first game and became the first Negro ever to pitch in the American League and the fifth ever to play in the major leagues.
Satchel Paige
If I didn’t show them now, they’d never believe I was one of the greatest of all times.
Satchel Paige
I reared back, kicked that left foot of mine up in the sky, then pivoted and threw my fast one. The crowd oohed. There wasn’t many that showed speed like that. And they were calling me the old man. Why, there were guys half of my age who were throwing those soft pitches like knucklers and letups. I got Hodgin out of there in no time.
Satchel Paige
I’d given up only three hits and had me my fifth win against only one loss. There’d be no more worrying about the old man now.
Satchel Paige
[On being told that ‘Looks like you’re rookie of the year, Satch’] You may be right, man. But twenty-two years is a long time to be a rookie.
Satchel Paige
They’d always had to listen to that same old sentence: ‘If you were only white so you could be in the majors.’
Satchel Paige
If you were only white… that had pressed me too, but it was gone.
Satchel Paige
The Negro race is an appreciative one regardless of what anyone says. No, they have not forgotten that it was Branch Rickey who took the biggest step and made it possible for all that followed.
Satchel Paige
[On himself] To Negro America he was no amateur but a star – the biggest they knew – one who knew baseball like an old fox and could play against the finest the white league could find.
Satchel Paige
I never figured I’d be some kind of symbol. Well, if I was, I had to admit I was a little rusted up. You get rusted when you got to come all the way from the slums of Mobile, Alabama…
Satchel Paige
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