His actual birthdate, July 7, 1906, was determined in 1948 when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck traveled to Mobile, Alabama, and accompanied Paige's family to the County Health Department to obtain his birth certificate.

It was Davis, who was also a trustee of the school, who devoted the long hours coaching the boys in baseball, and it was he who struck the deal with the sporting-goods store in Montgomery to secure the team's first uniforms.

[28] A third version, told by the general manager of the Santa Clara Leopards, says that he left Cuba in haste after legal charges were brought against him regarding an amorous incident with "a young lady from the provincial mulatto bourgeoisie.

In the spring of 1930, Jackson leased him to the Baltimore Black Sox, who had won the 1929 American Negro League championship led by their bowlegged third baseman Jud "Boojum" Wilson.

[35] In September, Paige joined a Negro all-star team organized by Tom Wilson, called the Philadelphia Giants, to play in the California Winter League.

[36] In 1932, Greenlee signed Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe away from Cumberland Posey's Homestead Grays to assemble one of the finest baseball clubs in history.

By the end of the season, Greenlee had signed to contracts Cool Papa Bell, John Henry Russell, Leroy Matlock, Jake Stephens, "Boojum" Wilson, Jimmie Crutchfield, Ted Page, Judy Johnson, and Rap Dixon.

Greenlee leased Paige to the Colored House of David, a prominent barnstorming team of white men who represented a religious commune and wore beards.

The final, championship game was his third start in five days and he faced the Kansas City Monarchs—at the time an independent, barnstorming team—who were participating in the tournament with a lineup augmented by Negro league stars Turkey Stearnes and Sam Bankhead.

Playing for the East, Paige came in during the sixth inning with a man on second and the score tied 0–0, and proceeded to strike out Alec Radcliffe and retire Turkey Stearnes and Mule Suttles on soft fly balls.

[47] Bill Veeck, future owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns, and Chicago White Sox, was watching the game and many years later described it as "the greatest pitchers' battle I have ever seen.

The team included Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Leroy Matlock, Buck Leonard, Felton Snow, Bill Wright and Sammy Hughes.

Paige recruited five of his Crawfords teammates—Cool Papa Bell, Leroy Matlock, Sam Bankhead, Harry Williams and Herman Andrews—as well as Josh Gibson, who had recently been traded to the Homestead Grays.

Wilkinson offered him the modest opportunity to play, not for the Negro American League Monarchs, but for a second-string barnstorming team called the Travelers, which was now renamed the Satchel Paige All-Stars.

Playing throughout Kansas, Missouri, the Dakotas, Illinois, and even Utah,[70] large crowds turned out to see Paige throw an inning or two, relying on junkballs.

In late June, the NNL and NAL leaders met to discuss the situation and reached an agreement that allowed Paige to advance to the Kansas City Monarchs and let the Manleys keep the players they had recruited in violation of the inter-league rules.

Among Paige's Kansas City teammates, Connie Johnson, Buck O'Neil, and Ted Strong entered military service that year, and Willard Brown followed them the following season.

[106] Before the 1944 East-West All-Star Game—black baseball's most lucrative event—Paige grabbed headlines when he demanded that the owners contribute the receipts to the war relief fund, threatening a player strike if they did not accede.

[107][108][109] In 1946, many of the Monarchs' players, including Willard Brown, Connie Johnson, Buck O'Neil, Ford Smith, and Ted Strong, returned from military service, and the team led the NAL in both the first and second halves, capturing the league pennant.

Feller's team included 1946 American League batting champion, Mickey Vernon, at first base, Johnny Beradino at second, Phil Rizzuto at shortstop, and Ken Keltner at third.

The outfielders were Jeff Heath, Charlie Keller, and Sam Chapman; after the World Series was over, National League batting champion Stan Musial would also join the tour.

Wilkinson and Tom Baird, Paige assembled a team that included first baseman Buck O'Neil, second baseman Hank Thompson, shortstops Chico Renfroe and Artie Wilson, third basemen Howard Easterling and Herb Souell, outfielders Gene Benson and Johnny Davis, catcher Quincy Trouppe, and pitchers Barney Brown, Gentry Jessup, Rufus Lewis, Hilton Smith, and Neck Stanley.

Although a nervous Paige walked two of the first three batters and gave up a triple to Bud Stewart to fall behind 2–0, by the time he left in the seventh, the Indians were up 4–2 and held on to give him his second victory.

Coming into the game against the White Sox, Bob Lemon, Gene Bearden and Sam Zoldak had thrown shutouts to run up a 30-inning scoreless streak, 11 shy of the big league record.

On September 25, against the Boston Red Sox,[130] Finley invited several Negro league veterans, including Cool Papa Bell, to be introduced before the game.

Grays General Manager Marshall Fox decided to let the nearly-sixty-year-old legend pitch in a real game, which Satchel did two days later, drawing a much larger-than-usual crowd of 3,118[132] to War Memorial Stadium.

Again facing Greensboro, Paige started the game and pitched two innings, allowing two runs on five hits, before giving way to scheduled starter (and future big-leaguer) Steve Mingori.

After the 1957 season, Paige went to the Mexican state of Durango to appear in a United Artists movie, The Wonderful Country, starring Robert Mitchum and Julie London.

In August, with great difficulty because of health problems, he attended a reunion of Negro league players held in Ashland, Kentucky, that paid special tribute to him and Cool Papa Bell.

Attending the reunion were Willie Mays, Buck Leonard, Monte Irvin, Judy Johnson, Chet Brewer, Gene Benson, Bob Feller and Happy Chandler.