1. Satchel Paige's age was a matter of perpetual mystery. Every time he was asked he offered a different answer, depending on who was asking and when. Why was it so difficult to pin down a straightforward matter like his birth date? And why do you think Satchel sometimes tried to make himself forever young, like Peter Pan, and other times as old as Methuselah?2. Satchel grew up in Mobile in the early 1900s, long after the failure of the Reconstruction era, which promised a New South after the Civil War ended slavery. It was the era of Jim Crow and Uncle Tom. Who were Jim Crow and Uncle Tom? What do they tell us about what life in Mobile was like for a young boy like Satchel Paige?3. Satchel Paige entered the world as Leroy Robert Paige.
How did he come to be called "Satchel?" The roots of his nickname, like everything in his life, have several possible explanations. Why didn't he clear up the mystery with a simple answer?4. The Alabama Reform School for Juvenile Negro Law-Breakers is where Satchel discovered just how overpowering a pitcher he could be, and just how much he loved the game of baseball. What landed Satchel in the reformatory? Did it matter that the school was based on the black self-help philosophy of Booker T. Washington and run by the Federation of Colored Women's Clubs? What lessons did Satchel take away from his five years in reform school?5. Some people say that Satchel was the greatest pitcher ever to toss a baseball, a claim backed up with statistics like his pitching 2,500 games, winning two thousand of them, and recording fifty no-hitters. Why is it so difficult to separate truth from legend in the days of the Negro Leagues? What evidence is there that the claims about Satchel were the truth? What evidence that they were legend? Why was there separate Negro Leagues in the first place, and was baseball in America always racially segregated?6. Satchel was a showman as well as a star, calling in his fielders, pitching over matchbooks he placed on home plate, and dazzling fans with his aphorisms along with his antics.
Why did he feel it necessary to perform like that? Did he ever slip, as critics say, into the role of the Uncle Tom?7. Satchel was a great friend to and competitor of the "black Babe Ruth," Josh Gibson. What was their relationship like? How were they different? Were those differences a matter of personalityor of divergent responses to being a baseball star in a racially divided universe?8. Satchel barnstormed across America, pitching night after night in mining towns and farming ones, from springtime through summer, fall, and winter. Why did he pitch so often, while white big leaguers threw just every third or fourth day and took off most of the fall and all winter? What did he learn about himself and about America by barnstorming?9. Baseball owners historically exercised an imperial control over their players, buying and selling them as they would property, holding on to them for life if they so chose. That was true in the Negro Leagues as in the Majors. How did Satchel's jumping from team to team affect that feudal system? How, if at all, did Satchel's unprecedented salaries, and his throwing off owners' shackles, affect his fellow ballplayers?10.
If Satchel was so special, why did Branch Rickey pass him over for his Kansas City Monarchs teammate Jackie Robinson as the man who would break the color barrier in baseball? And, having been passed over, what role if any can Satchel claim in having integrated America's pastime?11. Why do we know so little about Satchel today? What is the real legacy of Satchel Paige?.