Satchel Paige and Babe Ruth

This past Friday’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle notes the similarities in Babe Ruth’s and Satchel Paige’s formative years in reform school, and the dramatic differences between life for the Negro Leagues and Major League players each one became.

As Scott Ostler writes, “Ruth had it easy, eased into the big-league system like a man cruising onto a freeway. Paige was like the advance scout for Lewis & Clark. He made up the rules -and broke them – as he went.”

That says it all.