Research Catalog

Title

The pitcher and the dictator : Satchel Paige's unlikely season in the Dominican Republic / Averell "Ace" Smith.

Author

Smith, Averell,

Publication

• Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 211 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

• "How Satchel Paige spent one season playing for the dictator Rafael Trujillo's team in the Dominican Republic"--
• "Soon after Satchel Paige arrived at spring training in 1937 to pitch for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, he and five of his teammates, including Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, were lured to the Dominican Republic with the promise of easy money to play a short baseball tournament in support of the country's dictator, Rafael Trujillo. As it turned out, the money wasn't so easy. After Paige and his friends arrived on the island, they found themselves under the thumb of Trujillo, known by Dominicans for murdering those who disappointed him. In the initial games, the Ciudad Trujillo all-star team floundered. Living outside the shadow of segregation, Satchel and his recruits spent their nights carousing and their days dropping close games to their rivals, who were also stocked with great players. Desperate to restore discipline, Trujillo tapped the leader of his death squads to become part of the team management. The American players believed they might be lined up and shot if they lost the tournament. When Paige's team ultimately rallied to win, it barely registered with Trujillo, who a few months later ordered the killings of fifteen thousand Haitians at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Paige and his teammates returned to the states to face banishment from the Negro Leagues, but ironically they barnstormed across America wearing their Trujillo All-Stars uniforms.The Pitcher and the Dictator is an extraordinary story of race, politics, and some of the greatest baseball players ever assembled, playing high-stakes baseball in support of one of the Caribbean's cruelest dictators."--

Subjects

• Pitchers (Baseball)
• Baseball
• Dominican Republic
• African American baseball players
• Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo (Baseball team) History
• African American baseball players > Biography
• United States
• Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leónidas, 1891-1961
• Pitchers (Baseball) > United States > Biography
• Baseball > Dominican Republic > History
• History
• Biography
• Dominican Republic > History > 1930-1961
• Paige, Satchel, 1906-1982
• 1930-1961
• Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo (Baseball team)

Genre/Form

• Biography.
• History.

Note

• Trujillo City -- Time to Get a Job -- Show Me the Money -- Chapita -- The Americans -- A Long, Lanky Black Boy by the Name of Satchell -- Trujillo Es El Jefe -- Opening Day Away -- Royal Prerogative -- Total Catastrophe -- The Stars Arrive -- Despues de la Victoria -- Nuevos Rumbos - Black Babe Ruth -- Fiesta de la Chapita -- The Maestro's Coda -- The Heartbreaking End of Josh Gibson -- The Fall of Trujillo -- The Persevering Paige-- "El Gamo" -- Y Otras -- Epilogue: Tenth Inning -- Appendix: Notes on Paige's Magical Pitching -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-205) and index.

ISBN

• 9781496205490
• 1496205499

LCCN

2017036451

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library