Some baseball historians insist he was not even the best in blackball. Smokey Joe Williams threw at least as hard and almost as long. Bullet Joe Rogan fielded, hit, and blended a fastball and curve with exquisite control. John Donaldson had a curveball faster than most pitchers’ fastballs. The Foster half brothers, Rube and Willie, could also make claims to the throne, along with Richard “Cannonball Dick” Redding, Hilton Smith, and José Méndez. In the end, however, Satchel was the frame of reference, the one everyone compared themselves to and whom historians perpetually lift up to the
...more
