‘Full of jokes, full of crap’: Satchel Paige’s great-nephew recalls

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'Full of jokes, full of crap': Satchel Paige's great-nephew recalls fishing buddy, getting a prized heirloom

By John Sharp | 

Christopher Grove looks down at his hand, sees a bronze ring from an obscure minor league championship of 51 years ago and smiles knowing he doesn't so much have a piece of baseball history, but a family heirloom from a long-lost fishing buddy.

"He was just a normal, everyday guy," said Grove, 75, a Mobile resident, talking about his great-uncle, who is also one the greatest professional baseball pitchers of all-time -- Satchel Paige.

The ring belonged to Paige and was given to him as a member of the 1973 Tulsa Oilers of the American Association of the minor leagues.

Paige, a Mobile native who often returned to his hometown to visit family including Grove, has a 20-plus-year career in Negro Leagues that included a three-year stint with the Birmingham Black Barons in the late 1920s. The story of the Negro Leagues, and the Black Barons, will be embraced during a June 20 Major League Baseball game at historic Rickwood Field.

As a pitching coach for the Oilers, he received a championship ring that wound up in Grove's possession while the two were in Mobile and engaged in a bit of streetside bartering next to Paige's pick-up truck.

"I had a diamond crystal pocket watch, and was wearing it when he said, 'I want that watch, boy,'" Grove recalled the interaction recently with AL.com. "I asked him, 'what will you give me for it?' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of money. I said, 'I don't want any money.'"

The bargaining continued. Paige knew his grand-nephew was a budding photographer, and was into the newest and shiniest camera equipment. Paige had received some equipment from a TV station and made a follow-up offer to Grove.

"I said, "I don't want that either,'" Grove said.

"He said, 'what do you want?'"

Grove pointed to the ring.

"'I just got this ring,'" Grove recalls Paige's incredulous response.

"I said, 'I don't care,'" Grove responded. Paige then took it off, and replied, "You drive a hard bargain."

Grove was then handed a piece of baseball history.

Paige, though, ended the transaction under one condition.

"It cannot ever leave the family," Grove said he remembers Paige telling him.

Tulsa Oilers - 1973
The ring that is in Grove's possession now dates to a "fascinating team and season," according to longtime sports journalist Barry Lewis of the Tulsa World.

Paige, two years removed from his Hall of Fame induction, "was not the traditional pitching coach" for the Oilers.



Nurse Louise makes sure Satchel Paige is comfortable as he sits in his rocking chair just outside the Kansas City Athletics' bull pen during the game with Washington, September 23, 1965.

The rocking chair was a trademark for Paige. In 1965, at the age of 59, Paige tossed three scoreless innings in a Major League Baseball game for the Kansas City A's against the Boston Red Sox. He had the rocking chair set up in the bullpen and in the dugout during the game.