Satchel : The Life and Times of an American Legend

Leroy "Satchel" Paige is a poster child for the tragedy of segregated baseball. He could have dominated major league pitching but got a chance with the Indians only at the end of his career. Paige could have been the star to break baseball's color line, but Jackie Robinson got first crack as a "safer choice." While there are stacks of biographies about Robinson, this is the first attempt at a full, major biography of Paige. Tye, a journalist, is more noted for his labor histories, such as Rising from the Rails, about black rail porters. However, he's a passionate baseball fan with a strong interest in the history of segregated America. Why has so little been written about Paige? One factor is the difficulty of getting reliable information. Paige was well known for embellishing stories. Tye masterfully weaves primary and oral sources together to create a credible biography of a talkative yet elusive subject. We can hope that his occasional sloppiness when it comes to sports facts (e.g., he refers to Joltin' Joe Dimaggio as "Jumpin'" Joe) will have been corrected for publication because this is an important book about a neglected figure in baseball history. Recommended for all readers in sports as well as 20th-century America.Randall Schroeder, Ferris State Univ., Big Rapids, MI Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

LARRY TYE was an award-winning journalist at The Boston Globe and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. An avid baseball fan, Tye now runs a Boston-based training program for medical journalists. He is the author of Shock, Rising from the Rails, Home Lands, and The Father of Spin (a New York Times Notable Book), and his books have been turned into documentaries and films.