Mays talks Paige - Post your favorite baseball stories here

I could read baseball stories all day long. Such stories humanize the players we idolized from afar as kids. The vast majority of players were good guys, loved and respected the game and were super competitive.

I came across the story below on Facebook earlier today. I had never heard it previously. Enjoy!

Willie Mays describing when as a 17-year-old, he faced the 6’ 4” Satchel Paige for the first time: “It was 1948. Satchel had a very, very good fastball... but he threw me a little breaking ball, just to see what I could do, and I hit it off the top of the fence. I got a double. When I got to second, Satchel told the third baseman, 'Let me know when that little boy comes back up.' Three innings later, I go to kneel down in the on-deck circle, and I hear the third baseman say, 'There he is.' Satch looked at the third baseman, and then he looked at me.I walk halfway to home plate and he says, 'Little boy.' I say, 'Yes, sir?' because Satch was much older than I am, so I was trying to show respect. He walked halfway to home plate and said, 'Little boy, I'm not going to trick you. I'm going to throw you three fastballs and you're going to go sit down' and I'm saying in my mind, 'I DOOON'T THINK SOOO.' If he threw me three of the same pitch, I'm going to hit it somewhere. He threw me two fastballs and I just swung...I swung right through it.. and the third ball he threw, and I tell people this all the time, he threw the ball and as he let go he said, 'Go sit down.' This is while the ball was in the air. Yes, he struck me out with three pitches. He was just magnificent."

Years ago I heard Whitey Herzog tell a story about Satchel Paige's arm. They were playing minor league ball together in Miami and they were warming up around first base and Satch came up to him and said "You see that hole in the fence out there?" So Whitey looks and there was a hole not much larger than a couple of baseballs in the left centerfield fence so he says "Yes" Well Satch said "I'll bet you I can throw a ball through the hole from here on the first try." So Whitey said OK. He said Satch grabbed a ball with his back to the fence and just wheeled around and flung the ball 300 or so feet through the hole and then he said to Herzog "Never doubt Satch" And the kicker is Paige is 50 or 51 years old at the time he did this

Love that story! Thanks for sharing.

Also, I wish Satchel Paige had better Strat cards, seems like he should.

What I would do is combine two seasons of his known stats –- as found on https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... sa01.shtml -- into one card. That would be an accurate historical representation.

with all the knuckleheads in baseball lore,

it's hard to come up with a story stranger than (fiction) this

Pittsburgh hurler Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14