“I barnstormed with Satchel Paige annually, starting back in 1937 when both of us could really hum that ball. I had an all-star major league club behind me. They all bore down to see what they could do against such a fabled figure as Satchel Paige. They didn’t do much. By the time he came to the majors, of course, Paige was getting by mostly on savvy. Still, nobody ever stopped Joe DiMaggio as cold as he did. I’ve seen Satch walk a man deliberately to get at DiMaggio.” - Bob Feller (‘Baseball For The Love Of It’, Connor, pp. 209-210)
“You know who gave me the best advice? Satchel Paige. I met him in 1955, when we both were in the minors, and had some great conversations with him. I asked him what he thought was the most important thing about being a pitcher. He told me, ‘Young man, you gotta have a titty pitch. If you don’t have a titty pitch, you can’t win.’ I asked, ‘What is a titty pitch?’ I thought he was putting me on, getting ready to say something about sex. He ran his hand across his chest and said, ‘A titty pitch is right here.’ Of course, he was right about the need to pitch inside to win in the big leagues. He just had a different way of putting it.” - Jim ‘Mudcat’ Grant (‘We Played The Game’, Peary, p. 405)
“I ain’t no clown. I ain’t no end man in no vaudeville show. I’m a baseball pitcher, and winning baseball games is serious business… You gotta live pitchin’ to be a good one - think pitchin’, eat pitchin’, sleep pitchin’, work on it.” - Satchel Paige (‘Our Team’, Epplin, pp. 15, 24)
