In Atlantic City today, an extraordinary event is taking place. Eleven surviving members of the Negro Leagues will gather for Pop Lloyd weekend.

As Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star Ledger writes, “They will come to Atlantic City Friday, 11 of them … barely enough survivors to form a baseball team … but more than enough in spirit to preserve a trust fund of evergreen memories … memories of a time when no amount of bigotry could rob them of who they were and what they did.”

A poetic tribute to a great era in sports.

Satchel Paige played with grace, skill and vigor over more than 40 years, beginning in 1926 and continuing through the late 1960s. An article that I wrote for AARP reminds us of his astonishing feats at an age — his real one — when most ballplayers are watching from the bleachers, and that today, a quarter century after his passing, he still is an inspiration for every older American.

Why does it matter how old Satchel was? Because that was part of the myth that Satchel himself created to generate buzz among the press and others who were happy to cover all-white Major League Baseball, but barely noticed the Negro Leagues.

Satchel Paige: masterful PR with brilliant talent to back it up.

This evening, I’ll be in Brooklyn at JLA Studios on Pearl Street. Alex Belth and a few other Bronx Banter followers will be there. Also appearing will be Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski, author Jennifer Ring and filmmaker Jonathan Hock.

The event is free. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Hope to see you there.

I’m just back from a wonderful trip to Des Moines, where I did a talk pegged to the opening of a Negro Leagues exhibit at the Des Moines public library. It was great seeing how much people in the heartland care about black baseball and about Satchel in particular. It’s no surprise, since Satchel barnstormed there, and faced off repeatedly against Iowa native Bob Feller, who later was his teammate on the 1948 World Champion Cleveland Indians. A number of people who turned out for my talk had seen Satchel play over the years.

Next stop: Brooklyn, NY on October 1.  This talk is free and features three baseball authors and a filmmaker.

I’m now on Facebook and on Twitter.  Become a Facebook fan and / or a Twitter follower for updates on events that celebrate Satchel Paige’s remarkable contributions to African American baseball and to striking down Jim Crow.

The Yankees could have been racial pioneers along with their crosstown rivals, the Dodgers and Giants, and they could have landed the best center fielder ever.  But they ignored their scout’s advice to sign the great Willie Mays, and 13 months later the Giants nabbed him.  

That story, outlined in yesterday’s New York Times by John Klima, is as tragic as it is familiar.  The Red Sox had in for tryouts Jackie Robinson and two other Negro Leaguers before Branch Rickey signed Jackie, but the racist Sox were only doing it to appease an activist Boston city councilor.  And other Major League owners repeatedly hinted at plans to sign Satchel Paige and other great Negro Leaguers over the years, only to back out for lack of fortitude or resistance from fellow owners.

I am recently back from a tour that took me to San Francisco and Stockton, CA, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh (twice), Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, St. Louis, Manchester, NH and Concord, NH. I did talks at ballparks, talks at bookstores, and lots of radio and print interviews. A few themes emerged from my travels that I want to share:

# Satchel the magnet. There is endless interest out there in Satchel the ballplayer and Satchel the man. Seems like everywhere I went I met people who had played with or against him, often in barnstorming games that never registered on the radar of the press or the baseball establishment but that meant everything to the small-town players who got see Satchel up-close. Add to that the fans who saw Satchel pitch, or whose parents or grandparents did and passed down stories. Then there were those who think they did, or wish it to point where they believe it.

That was brilliant for me as I traveled, making clear that I didn’t have to tel people why they should care, just what more they should know about him. When I had useful things to say – whether it was sorting out fact from myth about his on-field accomplishments or talking about Satchel as a racial pioneer — people ate it up. When I got things wrong — like the timing of a Joe Louis title bout — people rightfully were all over me (I saw the error early on and it is being corrected in later editions).

Bottom line: I had a blast talking about Satchel and people seem to like to listen.

# A conversation on race. The discussion of racial themes in my book resonates more than I dreamed. A lot has to do with what is happening in the wider world, whether it is the Gates-Crowley-Obama saga, the plummeting participation of African-Americans in Major League Baseball, or the hopeful scene at the recent Hall of Fame inauguration, where the only two living players to be inducted were African-American.

Everywhere I spoke, whether it was live or via radio, listeners wanted to hear about how Satchel and other longtime Negro Leaguers set the stage for Jackie Robinson. They wanted to know why Branch Rickey hadn’t picked Satchel as the barrier breaker, and how Satchel felt about him picking Jackie. What they wanted more than anything, I think, was to openly talk about race — in sports, in society, and in ways that we can use Satchel’s refreshing candor on race to help us face a still-painful topic.

That is a big reason I wrote my book, which I saw as a biography of two American icons: Satchel Paige and Jim Crow. I was delighted to talk about Satchel and race — and more delighted when my talks drew in young people, who don’t know much about the Jim Crow era of segregation and are the audience I am most anxious to reach with my book and Satchel’s story.

# Balkparks as a forum. Random House and I have made this a tour with a twist. In most every city I visit, the trip is centered around a talk and signing at a minor or major league ballpark. In Stockton, the Ports, with help from the local chamber of commerce, gave out books to the first 350 fans who showed up and are making Satchel the centerpiece of a community-wide literacy campaign. In San Francisco, the Giants’ owner hosted a pre-game talk on the field where I was joined by the team’s announcer and by Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, who knew Satchel well. In Kansas City, the Royals did something similar with former ace Paul Splittorf and me, while the Pittsburgh Pirates had me in for a brilliant weekend of activities.

I love that the baseball world is taking Satchel seriously, and using my book to spawn a conversation about race and baseball. I also love that, rather than the standard giveaway of a bat or ball, some teams have been willing to strike a blow for literacy as well as for me by giving away books.

# The Paiges. I can’t talk about my tour without talking about the special people who turned up at each stop. There were old ballplayers, black and white, whom I interviewed about their days in the Negro Leagues and Majors, playing with or against Satchel. There were Negro League experts, from the professionals at Kansas City’s great museum to the Society of Baseball Research people for whom black baseball is a passion and who turned out at a conference last month in Pittsburgh.

Best of all were Satchel’s daughters Rita, Shirley and Linda Sue, who joined me for a talk in Kansas City. They told stories filled with charm and pathos. They were warm and welcoming. They made my day.

Please keep sending questions and comments, and please come to my remaining talks. You can find them listed on this site’s schedule.

I would also appreciate advice on how to broaden the conversation on Satchel. I have been writing op-eds for newspapers from LA to St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Mobile, Boston and elsewhere. I have been talking on the radio and via web sites. But I have a feeling there is more I could be doing to engage young people and others who care about baseball and race. Thoughts?

Good question, Stewart, about whether people recalling back to how they felt 50 years ago on a touchy subject like race might edit themselves according to today’s standards of political correctness. It is, of course, even more of an issue when they know that what they say could appear in print.

The short answer is YES, any journalist or author has to factor that in. The way to do that isn’t to make presumptions about what they were really thinking or feeling, or discount what they say, but to ask enough questions — and put the interviewee at sufficient ease — that they will be more likely to be honest. At times you also can let them go off the record.

I don’t want to embarrass my interview subjects or push them further than they are willing to go. I do want to get the full and truthful story.

As I keep saying in these postings, readers now have a long book to decide for themselves whether or not I succeeded.

Larry

Just got an interesting question from an unnamed poster asking why, since Satchel had written an interesting memoir, there was any need for my book.

Satchel actually wrote two autobiographies, with help from two ghost writers. Both books were fascinating looks at his take on his career and life, and they were decidedly different, which is not surprising since they were written 14 years apart. Both were invaluable in what I am other biographers have written or will write on Satchel. Neither, however, is a substitute for an independent biography.

An autobiography is a person’s deeply personal take on his or her life. A biography is an attempt to objectively assess that life from every angle, including how friends, family, and teammates saw and see the subject. A memoir often crafts a legend; a biography seeks to deconstruct it, separating the facts and fictions. I hope the unnamed poster will have a look at my book and reconsider whether I had something to add to Satchel’s story – or whether, as the poster suggests, I should have accepted Satchel’s take on himself as all we want to need to know.

Larry

In response to Janna’s questions about how to get a book published:

When you approach a publisher you have to have more than a general theme. If you are writing fiction, you generally need a finished book before anyone will consider it. With non-fiction, your proposal needs as many specifics as possible – on your thesis, how you will back it up with numbers and facts, who you already have interviewed and who else you will talk to, how what you are proposing differs from what others have already published, who you believe will buy your book, and on and on. All that takes lots of work and time. A publisher has to see precisely what the book will look like and how good a writer you are.

I don’t say this to discourage you or anyone from trying. Rather, it is a warning that book-writing is very hard work and that getting anything published these days is very difficult, especially by a press that reaches a mass market. So only try it if you have the time, you have a strong enough ego to withstand rejection, and, most important, you are so passionate about your topic that you can’t not write about it.

I had six friends read Satchel cover-to-cover before I sent it in. They ranged, as I explain in my Acknowledgments, from a Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer to journalists to an expert on the Negro Leagues. Other friends and colleagues read bits and pieces. Once it got to Random House, the terrific editor who bought the book did a rigorous edit, as did a series of other editors.

The good news is that each reader offered up ways to make it better. The frustration is that all that reading and revising takes time, which is why it is a full year after I submitted it that Satchel finally is about to hit the stores. That happens next week, on June 9.

Was it worth all that work? I leave that to you.