Piece Description

Satchel Paige is a legend and often legends are larger than life with their stories embellished over time. But what Larry Tye found is that the surprose in his research of one of the best baseball players in history was that the  grand stories about Satchel were mostly true. For Paige, there was never an off-season. He would barnstorm to small towns then play in Cuba and South America, pitching more in a year than many players do in a career.

Satchel was perhaps the best pitcher ever to play the game and whose personality and showmanship solidified baseball as a national pastime across race and class. But because he spent most of his career in the Negro Leagues, where records were poorly kept or not kept at all, there has never been a definitive telling of Paige's story, until now.

Tye calls his book a biography of Jim Crow as much as Satchel Paige. We learn about the the man's personal history and his introduction to baseball but we also learn that be pushed limits and broke down walls, not by design, but out of the respect he demanded.

Goldstein and Tye discuss the player, his life and how his pitching ability stood up to his peers and modern players.

In this interview listeners will rediscover a man whose talents and character helped shape modern civil rights and our national pastime.

More info at www.larrytye.com