The Real World

One of my favorite things about writing books is getting to spread the story about Satchel Paige face to face to live audiences.

This past week I did two talks that spanned the age spectrum. The first was the Society of American Baseball Researchers (SABR) winter event, where I appeared with former Red Sox pitcher Bill Monbouquette and Tampa Bay Rays switch hitter Fernando Perez, the first Major Leaguer whose work has been published in Poetry magazine. Perez shared his take on baseball today. Monbouquette contrasted that to the way the game was played in his era a half century ago, and recounted what it was like facing off against Satchel in his last Major League game back in 1965. Monbo was the last big-league player to strike out against Paige, a historic achievement that still makes him smile.

For a recap and audio clips, see http://tinyurl.com/yhngk2f

My second talk was to a lively high school audience in Concord, MA. The challenge: how to make anything that happened before last week — not to mention as far back as the 1920s and 30s — matter to today’s teens. I can only hope that, couching that history in a story about a brilliant baseball player, these kids will understand a bit more about a Jim Crow era where baseball, like every institution that mattered in America, was divided into black and white worlds.