"For most of his career Satchel Paige threw nothing but fastballs. Nothing.

And he was still unhittable for the better part of 15 years.

One pitch. It's a lot like Mariano Rivera, except he wasn't doing it for one inning at a time. He was pitching complete games day after day. That had to be some kind of incredible fastball...

In the late 1920s, when he was still trying to get his control under control -- he would become perhaps the most precise pitcher in baseball history -- he threw ludicrously hard. And he also threw hundreds and hundreds of innings. He was a great pitcher until he hurt his arm in the late 1930s, then recovered and was a great pitcher again in the 1940s, then had enough left to go 7-1 with a 2.48 ERA in 21 games as a rookie in the big leagues in 1948. Later, he made the All-Star Game. By then, and really for the decade or so before, he was relying more on his command and his guile and various other tricks to get hitters out than on any kind of speed. Nobody who would see Paige at that point could imagine how hard he threw as a young man.

Joe DiMaggio would say that Paige was the best he ever faced. Bob Feller would say that Paige was the best he ever saw. Hack Wilson would say that the ball looked like a marble when it crossed the plate. Dizzy Dean would say that Paige's fastball made his own look like a changeup."