|
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend |  | Author: Larry Tye
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $13.95
as of 3/10/2010 01:54 MST details
You Save: $12.05 (46%)
New (38) Used (16) Collectible (1) from $11.98
Seller: vacanzeinitalia
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 12167
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 1400066514
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN: 9781400066513
ASIN: 1400066514
Publication Date: June 9, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
He is that rare American icon who has never been captured in a biography worthy of him. Now, at last, here is the superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige.
Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in the Negro Leagues. Through dogged detective work, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher, interviewing more than two hundred Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers, talking to family and friends who had never told their stories before, and retracing Paige’s steps across the continent. Here is the stirring account of the child born to an Alabama washerwoman with twelve young mouths to feed, the boy who earned the nickname “Satchel” from his enterprising work as a railroad porter, the young man who took up baseball on the streets and in reform school, inventing his trademark hesitation pitch while throwing bricks at rival gang members.
Tye shows Paige barnstorming across America and growing into the superstar hurler of the Negro Leagues, a marvel who set records so eye-popping they seemed like misprints, spent as much money as he made, and left tickets for “Mrs. Paige” that were picked up by a different woman at each game. In unprecedented detail, Tye reveals how Paige, hurt and angry when Jackie Robinson beat him to the Majors, emerged at the age of forty-two to help propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series. He threw his last pitch from a big-league mound at an improbable fifty-nine. (“Age is a case of mind over matter,” he said. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”)
More than a fascinating account of a baseball odyssey, Satchel rewrites our history of the integration of the sport, with Satchel Paige in a starring role. This is a powerful portrait of an American hero who employed a shuffling stereotype to disarm critics and racists, floated comical legends about himself–including about his own age–to deflect inquiry and remain elusive, and in the process methodically built his own myth. “Don’t look back,” he famously said. “Something might be gaining on you.” Separating the truth from the legend, Satchel is a remarkable accomplishment, as large as this larger-than-life man.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
 Paige's struggle for acceptance February 2, 2010
67Rally (Seattle WA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are several thorough and quite competent reviews of Satchel that truly provide insight into the book and a peek into its subject. What more can another reviewer add to the 29 predominantly favorable reviews currently presented here? I thought about that as well and still I felt that I could provide at least, a tidbit into why a prospective reader should delve into reading Larry Tye's work.
Being an American history buff, and an avid baseball fan, I had perceptions of Satchel that were, in part, based on historical facts. I was very familiar with Paige's Major League statistics and his limited performance during his brief MLB tenure. Having visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on a few occasions seeing Satchel's plaque, I wanted to learn more about him and the other Negro League notables. Being a dyed-in-the-wool Dodgers fan, I had a biased perspective of MLB's integration and didn't fully understand the Negro League experience from a personal point of view.
Larry Tye, tasked with undertaking a monumental task of research, interviews and writing, provides and incredible piece that seemingly gives the reader much more than a glimpse into the experiences from a player's perspective. Exactly what it was like to grow up in African American (not a term used back in the early 20th century) in the Deep South as well as in Jim Crow America, I will never know, but Tye gives the reader a taste of what Satchel Paige endured.
This work does spend some time addressing the almost mythical statistic-accumulation this hurler amassed during his career, but this work is truly about the struggles Mr. Paige dealt with. From his meager beginnings in Mobile to his incarceration as a youth (which became a turning point for his life), to his dead-arm troubles in the late 1930s, and his personal relationships, Satchel is an assembly of anecdotes, quotes, news articles, and Paige's own recollections that sheds a great deal of "qualified" light various aspects of his life.
As was addressed earlier, Satchel is a work that extends beyond the realm of baseball fans or Negro League aficionados. It is a deep dive into the fabric of Leroy "Satchel" Paige and who he was to those close to him, his fans, his opponents and to Paige himself.
Satchel is an in-depth story that deals with the single most important goal of Satchel Paige: his acceptance as the best pitcher who played the game.
 A look back January 27, 2010
Johnny Heering (Bethel, CT United States)
Leroy "Satchel" Paige was one of the most colorful and most talented pitchers in baseball history. This is a very well researched and well written book about his life. Larry Tye does a good job of seperating the myths from the facts regarding Satchel. If you are interested in baseball history, you will probably enjoy this book.
great transaction! November 22, 2009
Stephen Krone (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania USA)
Great item accurately described, fairly priced and quickly shipped. Smooth transaction all the way around.
Satchel the Myth-Maker November 9, 2009
James L. Breithaupt (Anytown USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Larry Tye's book on Satchel reminds me of a biography of Scott Joplin I once read in that both men were of largely undocumented mythic proportions. Both men were itinerant performers and entertainers who did not garner the attention from the white media until their legends had already been made, forcing historians and biographers who followed to rely on oral history and the scanty references they find in unlikely sources to recreate their lives. In "Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend," Larry Tye finds the right balance between the folklore of Satchel's life and the social history of the times in which he lived, the age of segregation and Jim Crow "laws." I finished the biography believing that Satchel's greatness would have been supported by the numbers had someone been around to record them. However, we don't have much primary material to go by except for Satchel's own telling of his tale and the interviews with his contemporaries. But that doesn't matter much because the author has recreated the tone and timbre of Satchel's being. How I wish I could transport myself to Bismarck in the 1930's to watch Satchel throw his slow-delivery fastball over the top of his shoe! If you want to feel what the life of a Negro itinerant ballplayer was like in the 30's and 40's and understand how Satchel performed much of the "leg work" for Jackie Robinson and the young black players to follow, read Larry Tye's biography of Satchel.
 A Tortuous Read October 28, 2009
Peter A. Callaghan (Saipan, USA)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you love baseball and love a good story by a gifted writer, this book will be a huge disappointment. Mr. Tye took what should have been an epic story about a great ballplayer, probably the best pitcher ever, and made him boring. Oh, there are a few funny anecdotes and a few gee whiz stats, but Satchel is buried in Tye's sermon-like prose.
Compare this book with Charles Einstein's "Willie's Time" and you'll see what I mean. It is the epitome of capturing the essence of a ballplayer and the times in which he lived. Einstein is also a first-class writer. Tye is not.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
|
|
|
Contact The Book On Sports
Privacy and Legal CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
