Work Like You Don't Need The Money-A Baseball Story

“Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.” Satchel Paige

An outstanding biography.Photo byRandom House, 2010

Baseball, I believe, is the game that most closely fits the American cultural landscape. Its roots run deep even back to the Civil War when legend has it that Confederate prisoners actually played the game with their captors.

Baseball lore is rich with heroes. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Gibson, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and many more. Their lives and stories became good movies and great novels.

Roy Hobbs, is a fictional character, an ambitious and talented but flawed baseball player who is the protagonist of “The Natural” (Farrar, Straus, 1952), a novel by Bernard Malamud. The character was portrayed by Robert Redford in the 1984 film version of the novel which introduced millions to Roy Hobbs. I can hear Randy Newman’s dramatic movie score at the flip of a switch in my dreams and marvel at the injured Robert Redford’s base running to complete his victorious home run.

Fiction? Think about it.

The great Satchel Paige as an Atlanta Brave in 1968.Photo bySavannah Morning News

One man, Satchel Paige, still inspires me. In 1968, Bill Bartholomay, the Atlanta Braves president, signed the great star and player as a “”part-time pitcher and adviser,” that was intended to qualify the aging legend for a player’s pension. With the help of a friend in the Atlanta Braves front office, I met the man who advised the world, “don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.”

Baseball biographies fill my bookshelves. Few stories measure up to the wildly entertaining saga chronicled in Larry Tye’s “Satchel-The Life and Times of an American Legend,” (Random House 2010). More than a sports story, it is a journey into the mighty struggle of a man who believed in his talents so much that he overcame racial obstacles by a combination of super-human skills on the pitcher’s mound with profound wit.

Satchel Paige might be the most quoted athlete in sports history:

“Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.”

“Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one's own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.”

“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”

“Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”

“If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.”

"Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.”

And, a personal favorite: “Avoid running at all times.”

We need a new movie, one about Satchel Paige. Jamie Foxx, the gifted actor who brought Ray Charles to the big screen, seems to have the right stuff to portray baseball's greatest pitcher.

America could use a hero right now.