Keep Movin’

I was born with control. I take two awful hot baths a day. I keep movin’ all the time on the diamond — and I eat nothin’ but fried food.

Why does my arm last so good? Because I take care of Number One — and Number One is here — I take care of the back and stomach muscles ’roun’ here. That gives me balance. That keeps my arm from getting strained. Keep your back strong and your stomach down and you’ll have balance — and balance is what you need out there on the hill. Why, I can stand on one foot for 30 minutes like a statue in the park.

They say too much exercise will get you. Now, I never did see where it got you. I see where it makes you strong, that’s all. I keep movin’ from the minute I step on a ball field. I never do sit still till I come back after the first inning. Before the game, I start fielding bunts, then I hit to the infield, then I chase flies, or work out at third, but I never do throw till every muscle, every single one, is all loosed up. People tell me to sit, rest, not work so hard. They say I’ll break a finger. I tell ’em my hands take care of themselves. I could play the infield if I didn’t pitch.

When I get all loosed up, I get me a catcher and warm up, but I never do throw hard till I’m sure every little muscle is fine and free. I never did throw a ball in the last 13 years without ever’thing was loose and ready.

I never throw ’em cold. No day.

I take a bath, hot as I can stand, when I get up in the morning, and then I take one hotter'n that after a game — so hot nobody else could stand it. Near boiling, that’s how hot I take it. And it has kept my arm from ever gettin’ sore, and it's kept my arm alive. Just as good today as I ever was.

And then I keep movin’ like I say, for an hour before I start to pitch. I bend and whirl and loosen my muscles up before I ever do throw hard at all.

You can eat anything if you keep movin’. Keep movin’ and the fat will never settle anywheres. Fat can't catch hold on you if you keep movin’.

I never do eat anything but fried food — no boiled food, jus’ fried.

In those Latin countries I ate everything. I ate their fruit and I drunk their water while all the other American players on my team stood around waving their hands and hollering about typhoid, and things like that. But I never did get it, not one minute.

They liked me on the coacher lines when I was playing in Puerto Rico. And I liked them. I got so I could speak some Spanish, and I’d get off up into the jungle sometimes to see what it was like. Once we had political trouble and Uncle Sam got us out, but most of the time it was nice. It was more comfortable than any other of them Latin countries because Uncle Sam owned it.

I haven't had a cold in twelve years, either. I never did come North till June or July, and for the last four years I’ve been stayin' in Puerto Rico in winter. Where it's warm.

I like to pitch. I got me in Chicago this week the first overcoat I’ve had in five years, ’cause I'm stayin’ in America this winter. Can’t tell what baseball would be like with all this war talk in the West Indies.

I’ve traveled more than any other professional athlete. I’ve been in all the states of the Union but two —Maine, and Boston.

I’m the easiest man in the world to catch. I jus’ pick up catchers catch-as-catch-can if I’m travelin’ without a team. All he has to do is to show me the glove and hold it there. I’ll hit it. I can knock a box of paper matches out of a man’s fingers at sixty feet. They can hold out two bats, one six inches above the other at the plate, and I’ll throw a ball between them from the pitcher mound.

All a catcher has to know about me is when I’m throwin’ my beeline ball and when I’m throwin’ my jump ball. I throw both with the same overhead motion. Only the bee-ball goes off with my fingers on the smooth hide and rides on the level, while I throw my jump ball with my fingers across the seams. That makes it jump four to six inches.

Three years ago I threw my first curve. Before that I never did bother about it ’cause my fast one was enough. Then I thought I’d save my arm for my old age and began slow curves and a knuckleball. My curve is never fast. I never break it off. Might crack a bone in my wrist. Just a slow curve to fool ’em. The batters can’t believe it from me. They hear about my speed and they can’t believe the curve when they see it. I use it for strike three when I have him three and two. I got seventeen strikeouts in one day this summer on men waiting in that three-and-two spot for a fast one and then gettin’ a slow curve.

I can get that curve right in the heart as good as my fast one.

It’s not only speed and a change of pace that fools batters, but I throw fast balls from three angles — overhand, side-arm, and even underhand.

I use three sets of these here little biceps. Overhand uses one, way out sideways uses another, and up from down there still another one. That’s another reason my arm never does get tired.

I’m not superstitious. But I love to strike out the first batter. In fact I love to strike out all the batters, but particularly the first four. That gives the rest of ’em the idea.

I throw the first time high to each batter as he comes up, and I watch how he lunges at it. From then on I know where he wants it and what he can and can’t do.

I never hit but two men in sixteen years’ pitching. That was one day in 1932 in St. Louis when I lost control. It really scared me, ’cause with my speed I might kill somebody.

It’s been thirteen years since I dusted a batter. I don’t have to, and I don’t want no hitters thinkin’ I’m dustin’ ’em when I throw my first side-arm ball up there. It comes from so far out they think it’s coming right at ’em. But it ain’t. It’s coming right over the plate, and they see it too late.

The hardest to fool batter to fool was Charlie Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers, Yes, him. When they hit flat-footed they’re the best hitters, and he sure stands-there flat-footed. Joe DiMaggio is good, but that Gehringer, he’s real good.

I’ve pitched no-hit no-run games in my time, the most recent in Detroit, but I don’t try for ’em. I like to let a runner or two get on base and then strike out the side with the ball whistling and the crowd screaming.

Once pitching in a series between Negro All-Stars and white All-Stars, I won the game and was on the bench the next day when the whites filled the bases with nobody out. I looked up at Candy Jim Taylor, the manager, and, twiddled my glove, and said: “You want the side out, Candy Jim?”

He gave a nod, and I went out to the mound, walking as slow and confidently as Alexander the time he came on and struck out Lazzeri for the all-time climax of World Series excitement. Now came the great Satchel Paige. That gave ’em ideas too.

As I left the bench, I said to Candy Jim, “You hold up a finger for ever’ out I get. I’ll look over to keep up on things, and you just stand there and sign me where I’m at. I sometimes forget how many’s out.”

Then I went out and threw three times and Candy Jim put up one finger. Three more times and Candy Jim held up two. Three more and Candy Jim made it three. And the crowd sounded like Niagara Falls.