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Satchel: The Life And Times Of An American Legend (2009)

by Larry Tye(Favorite Author)

3.97 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1400066514 (ISBN13: 9781400066513)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House

review 1: I've never been one for reading biographies, but as a lifelong baseball fan, I felt compelled to pick up Satchel when I saw it in the local bookstore. While I still had a harder time reading it than I would a novel, I thought that this was a particularly captivating read about one of America's greatest baseball heroes, black or white. Tye does a great job digging through mountains of statistics, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts of Satchel's life, and portrays the man as he was, in addition to the larger-than-life myths that surrounded him throughout his career. As an extra bonus, Tye weaves in a succinct history of the Negro Leagues, a subject that I had only a cursory knowledge of before reading this book, and one that I believe every true baseball fan should ge... moret to know in order to appreciate the history of the game.Additionally, Tye seems unafraid to tell some hard truths in this book, such as the fact that Jackie Robinson was a figure of contempt to many long-time Negro Leaguers who felt that they were more deserving than number 42 to become the first to break the color line. He also brings up a valid point that while the integration of baseball did wonders for the civil rights movement, it also completely ruined the Negro Leagues, putting many baseball men, as well as local businessmen and team owners, out of a job. These are facets of integration that are rarely brought up, and I applaud Tye for bringing them to light.The only reason I can't give this book five stars is due to Tye's incessant bailing out of Satchel whenever the pitcher is in the wrong. According to the author, Paige doesn't buy expensive suits and lavish homes because he has no sense of control, but because he's just so happy to be out of the slums of Mobile (a refrain echoed a lot today by tons of lavishly spending pro athletes); when Satchel's barnstorming teams win big over a group of Major League whites, the pitcher carries the team, but when they lost, Satch lacked run support; he wasn't a philanderer who cheated on his wives constantly, but a man with good intentions with a soft spot for women. I understand that I biographer has a duty to back up his subject, I just think Tye went a bit too far.Of course, it's plain to see that a good deal of Tye's information is hearsay, oftentimes provided by Satchel himself (a man with a penchant for increasing his own legend), but is difficult to fault him, since it is nearly impossible to find consistent statistics for Satchel's time in the Negro Leagues, and the book was written when a fair amount of Satch's cohorts had passed. Overall, I'd say this is a must-read for any baseball fans, especially those who want to learn about the Negro Leagues, as well as the League's greatest star. Satchel is a rare case of an American sports star, along with those such as Babe Ruth and Muhammed Ali, that is equal parts hero and myth, whose impact goes far beyond mere statistics, but has become infused permanently into the brilliant tapestry of legends that is American sports. Satchel is one of those sports figures that deserves to live forever, not only through his contributions to the civil rights movement, baseball integration, and the development of the game itself, but through his outsized legends that help to transform a mere game into America's Pastime.
review 2: Exhaustively researched bio of a very enigmatic figure. Paige may have been the greatest pitcher in baseball history, but it's impossible to know for sure. Due to racial segregation and Paige's natural waywardness, hard facts about his pitching prowess are very hard to come by. This book gathers as much as it can, as well as the endless myths, legends and tall tales about Paige's pitching dominance and sly personality in nearly every one of the United States and several lands abroad. While it's great to read about this tall, gangly, witty, seemingly ageless man and his many maxims and Twain-esque philosophies, the author sometimes blends fact and legend in a way that undercuts the point of the book. There are times when Tye clearly notes certain tales as hearsay or the stuff of myth, but other times he seems to fall under the spell himself and his prose ventures a little too far away from sobriety to make for the stuff of a fully objective biography. Still, this seems to be THE source for Paige info. less

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