Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the USA's Baseball Hall of Fame.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, honoring those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall's motto is "Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations". Cooperstown is often used as shorthand (or a metonym) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, similar to "Canton" for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
The Hall of Fame was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Clark sought to bring tourists to a city hurt by the Great Depression, which reduced the local tourist trade, and Prohibition, which devastated the local hops industry. Clark constructed the Hall of Fame's building, and it was dedicated on June 12, 1939. (His granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark, is the current chairman of the board of directors.) The erroneous claim that Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown was instrumental in the early marketing of the Hall.
An expanded library and research facility opened in 1994. Dale Petroskey became the organization's president in 1999. In 2002, the Hall launched Baseball as America, a traveling exhibit that toured ten American museums over six years. The Hall of Fame has since also sponsored educational programming on the Internet to bring the Hall of Fame to schoolchildren who might not visit. The Hall and Museum completed a series of renovations in spring 2005. The Hall of Fame also presents an annual exhibit at FanFest at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
The San Francisco Giants have the most inductees, with 66.
Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
A right-handed pitcher, Paige first played for the semi-professional Mobile Tigers from 1924 to 1926. He began his professional baseball career in 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League and became one of the most famous and successful players from the Negro leagues. On town tours across the United States, Paige would sometimes have his infielders sit down behind him and then routinely strike out the side.At age 42 in 1948, Paige made his debut for the Cleveland Indians; to this day, this makes him the oldest debutant in the National League or American League history. Additionally, Paige was 59 years old when he played his last major league game, which is also a record that stands to this day. Paige was the first black pitcher to play in the American League and was the seventh black player to play in Major League Baseball. Also in 1948, Paige became the first player who had played in the Negro leagues to pitch in the World Series; the Indians won the Series that year. He played with the St. Louis Browns from 1951 to 1953, representing the team in the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953. He played his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League, two weeks shy of 60. In 1971, Paige became the first electee of the Negro League Committee to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.