Ole Satchel

Quick—who’s the greatest pitcher of all time?

Ask the batters in any of Nolan Ryan’s seven no-hitters and twelve one-hitters and they may say he was. But his career winning percentage was less than 53% which is not great.

I had the fortune of seeing Sandy Koufax pitch in Dodger Stadium a few times and numerous times on television. I’ve considered him the all-time toughest pitcher to hit. But he was great only for five years.

I saw Pedro Martinez pitch while sitting next to the dugout and understood why he shut out the other team. Randy Johnson in his prime was dominating.

I’ve heard that Walter Johnson was the best pitcher of all-time. Yeah, but try to prove it. Everyone who saw him pitch in person or on television, raise your hand. I don’t see any hands up.

Bob Gibson had the single best season statistically speaking. Perhaps the fifteen inch high mound helped.

It’s like an argument with your wife. You can’t win even if you have the facts right.

(Notice I didn’t put Roger Clemens in the discussion of greatest pitchers which would be the same as putting Mark McGwire as one of the greatest home run hitters of all time.)

Since we cannot easily determine the greatest pitcher of all time as it is subjective and dependent of one’s definition of great, let’s rephrase the question. Who is the greatest storytelling pitcher, besides Clemens of course?

Dizzy Dean would be a good candidate. Here’s one of his lines: “Bill Terry once hit a ball between my legs so hard that my center-fielder caught it on the fly backing up against the wall.”

He also said this: “I know who’s the best pitcher I ever see and it’s Satchel Paige, that big lanky colored boy. My fastball looks like a change of pace alongside that little pistol bullet ole Satchel shoots up to the plate.”

I’ll go with Satchel Paige, who because of segregation did not play in the major leagues until he was either 41 or 43, and then went on to help Cleveland win the World Series. He won 12 games when he was something like 45 or 47 years old. See, no one really knew when he was born, not even Satchel. Here’s what he had to say about that.

“Now about my age. That’s usually a subject for women but I guess we got to go into it because the way everybody is fussin’ it seems it’s as important as the secret of the atomic bomb.

Right before study into this I want everybody to understand one thing. If I’m a little fuzzy about some of the dates in my life, it’s because I always got a problem a whole lot bigger to conjure with. I got to keep thinkin’ of my pichin’.

My mother didn’t tell nobody my age. She had eleven children. How can she keep track of their birthdays?

A judge in California says I’m 48. He says I was 41 about seven years ago when I was arrested for speeding. I suppose you gotta believe a judge.

I can show you a man who says I’m over 60. Everybody’s got a different number. They play bingo with me.”

Next week, more on Satchel, maybe or maybe not the greatest pitcher of all time, but certainly the greatest storytelling pitcher of all time.

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[I] Coldeen is a longtime journalist in the CNMI and is currently the news director of KSPN2[/I]