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Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend

Name: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend
Brand: Random House Trade
SKU: 9780812977974
Price: 19.99 USD
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Availability: In Stock

Contributors:

Larry Tye

Publisher:

Random House Trade

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Biography & Autobiography, Sports & Recreation

Book Subcategory:

Sports, Baseball, Cultural, Ethnic & Regional

Book Topic:

History, African American & Black

Shipping & Return +

The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

2010-05-04

ISBN 13:

9780812977974

Weight:

0.75 lbs

Size:

8.22 x 5.50 x 0.95 inches

Pages:

432

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy "Satchel" Paige

"Among the rare biographies of an athlete that transcend sports . . . gives us the man as well as the myth."--The Boston Globe

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.

About the Author
Larry Tye has been an award-winning journalist at The Boston Globe and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He now runs a Boston-based training program for medical journalists. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, as well as Superman, The Father of Spin, Home Lands, Rising from the Rails, and Demagogue, and co-author, with Kitty Dukakis, of Shock. He lives in Massachusetts.

Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend

Description

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