How much of Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever is written by Satchel Paige, and how much is written by David Lipman? How much is written by Lipman pretending to be Paige? How much of the content within the pages of Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever actually took place? If I were a gambling man, I’d wager that the answer to all those questions is a solid, meh, who knows? In reality, the answer should be, who cares? It doesn’t matter if Lipman or Paige wrote most of the book. Nor does it matter if some things were made up, etc. What matters is that, much like Satchel Paige himself, the contents of Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever speak to the myth of the man as opposed to the man himself.
Don’t take that last sentence to mean that I believe Paige is anything but one of the greatest pitchers to ever step foot on a baseball mound. There’s no arguing with his dominance, durability, pure skill, and results. For all eternity, Satchel Paige deserves every single bit of praise he gets as a ballplayer. He also deserves credit for understanding the power of personality and the concept of myth-building. Did Satchel really strike out the side after he told his outfielders to take a seat? My brain says, of course not, but the irrational side of me, who yearns for larger-than-life baseball figures, says, “If anyone could do that, it was ole Satch, so maybe it did happen!”
There’s not much meat to be found in Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever. It’s a breezy series of stories, told from Satchel’s perspective. It’s your typical autobiography in most respects; it even comes complete with a ghost writer of sorts. However, this isn’t a book about substance; rather, it is about the myth of substance and the genuine fun that is to be had with a man who wants you to believe that he wasn’t just the greatest, but near superhuman in his baseball abilities. There’s a certain level of charm in how the book covers Paige’s many feats of improbability. It’s that charm that made me turn page after page as I laughed and grinned at both the truth and the ridiculousness I was being fed.
Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever isn’t highbrow literature, but it’s a good baseball book. Paige and Lipman do a tremendous job of writing engagingly while building up the myth behind someone who was already a baseball legend. I laughed, I chuckled, I shook my head plenty. Mostly, I enjoyed spending some time following the baseball heroes and otherworldly feats of one of the best to ever lace them up.
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Summer Games Books
