Why does Satchel’s story touch almost everyone?

In the last month or so I have done talks at a public library in Des Moines, a sports club in Brooklyn, two synagogues near Boston, and yesterday, at the first-ever Boston Book Festival. Tomorrow: a church in Concord, MA.

What do those audiences have in common? Only this: that Satchel’s story seems to resonate with all of them.

That is more a tribute to him than me. His story has something for everyone — from racial pioneer to poster child for graceful aging. There’s the baseball stuff, the human tragedy of the racially segregated, impoverished world in which he grew up, and his triumphing over all that. We talk a lot these days about needing stories of human inspiration; none is more inspiring than that of Leroy “Satchel” Paige.