The Pitcher and the Dictator

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The Pitcher and the Dictator

Satchel Paige's Unlikely Season in the Dominican Republic

Averell "Ace" Smith

240 pages
14 photographs, 6 illustrations, 2 tables, 1 appendix, index

Hardcover

April 2018

978-1-4962-0549-0

$26.95 Add to Cart
Paperback

April 2020

978-1-4962-1952-7

$19.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

April 2018

978-1-4962-0671-8

$19.95 Add to Cart
eBook (EPUB)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

April 2018

978-1-4962-0669-5

$19.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

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.

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 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 games in support of one of the Caribbean’s cruelest dictators.

For more information about The Pitcher and the Dictator, visit thepitcherandthedictator.com.

Author Bio

Averell “Ace” Smith is a political consultant and lifelong baseball fanatic. He is a thirty‑year veteran of state and national politics and has directed winning campaigns from district attorney to president of the United States. He has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
 

Praise

“While baseball is at the heart of the book, The Pitcher and the Dictator—the pitcher being the legendary Satchel Paige—the story is about much more, including gunboat diplomacy, the blood-drenched history of the Dominican Republic and, not least, the prevalence of racism and repression in mid-twentieth century America.”—Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times
 

“This short, action-packed narrative illuminates one of those footnotes that dot the history of the game but are seldom explored in depth. Here the footnote explodes with unexpected vitality.”—Paul Dickson, Wall Street Journal
 

"This is a baseball book but it is so much more. It deals with history, politics, and power. . . . I encourage baseball fans and history aficionados to get this book for a good read."—Tom Knuppel, KNUP Sports

"Smith offers a breezy account of an unusual episode in baseball history that was just one of many colorful moments in Paige’s lengthy career."—Missouri Historical Review

"The Pitcher and the Dictator is an entertaining read, and Smith goes to great pains to describe the mood, the weather, the fans' enthusiasm and the sinister specter of Trujillo looking over the all-stars' shoulders. The detail is exquisite."—Bob D'Angelo, Sports Bookie blog

"If a reader wishes to learn more about this season in the Dominican Republic for three of the greatest stars of the Negro Leagues as well as the first Cuban player inducted into the American Baseball Hall of Fame, this is a good book to start that journey."—Guy Who Reviews Sports Books

“I was nineteen years old when I played with Satchel Paige in 1968. He knew my name but called me Daffy—and I was happy to let him. By then Satchel had lived one of the most extraordinary lives of our times, and Ace Smith captures his spirit with his compelling true story of the one adventure that could have ended it all, a deal to pitch in the Dominican Republic, under military watch, when losing was not an option. The Pitcher and the Dictator paints a rich portrait of one of the greatest barnstorming baseball teams.”—Dusty Baker, legendary Major League Baseball player and manager

The Pitcher and the Dictator is a gripping account of Satchel Paige’s travels to an island run by a dictator—during which he faces the harsh obstacles of racism, power, and politics in the 1930s.”—Lance Williams, award-winning journalist and coauthor of Game of Shadows

Table of Contents

Preface: Recovery of a Lost History    
1. Trujillo City    
2. Time to Get a Job    
3. Show Me the Money    
4. Chapita    
5. The Americans    
6. A Long, Lanky Black Boy by the Name of Satchell    
7. Trujillo Es El Jefe    
8. Opening Day Away    
9. Royal Prerogative    
10. Total Catastrophe    
11. The Stars Arrive    
12. Después de la Victoria    
13. Nuevos Rumbos    
14. Black Babe Ruth    
15. Fiesta de la Chapita    
16. The Maestro’s Coda    
17. The Heartbreaking End of Josh Gibson    
18. The Fall of Trujillo    
19. The Persevering Paige    
20. “El Gamo”     
21. Y Otras    
Epilogue: Tenth Inning    
Appendix: Notes on Paige’s Magical Pitching    
Notes    
Bibliography    
Index    

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