‘He was older than our fathers’: An oral history of Satchel Paige’s final game at 59

In Part 1 of Andscape’s in-depth Black History Month story about 1965, when Satchel Paige became the oldest player ever to appear in a Major League Baseball game, his Kansas City Athletics teammates and others revisited the hoopla when he joined the ballclub, including owner Charlie Finley providing an on-field rocking chair for the 59-year-old legend.

Part 2 picks up the story on Sept. 25, 1965, with the firsthand accounts of Paige’s daughter, the A’s and Boston Red Sox players and others who witnessed and contributed to the history he made in his first appearance in an MLB game in 12 years. All of the recollections are edited and condensed from more than 40 interviews – more than 20 with players – conducted from November 2024 to February 2025, and they are accompanied by excerpts from a newly obtained recording of the Kansas City radio broadcast of Paige’s historic performance before 9,289 fans at Municipal Stadium on a night billed as a “Salute to Satchel Paige.”

You can listen to the full radio broadcast of Paige’s performance here (courtesy of John Miley).

PAMELA PAIGE O’NEAL, Satchel Paige’s daughter, attended 9/25/65 game at age 17: He was good, so I knew he would be OK. We, like our dad, don’t attempt things unless we are going to conquer it, unless we are going to do it and do it well. The day of the game, we were quite excited. And we, contrary to what happens now, were all dressed up – young ladies didn’t wear slacks and leisure clothes. We all got ourselves ready. I’m the oldest, so I checked my younger siblings, my brothers and sisters, and we get in the car and go to the game. I just remember holding hands with my brothers and sisters and walking and sitting down and watching what happened. It was a unique experience to see him on the pitching mound and we were all excited. And where we were seated, we could see everything on the field. We were offered hot chocolate. And you sat quietly. And you paid attention. There wasn’t a lot of running around, the cameras weren’t flashing, nobody was coming up interviewing us. Those kinds of things did not happen.

LARRY LESTER, Negro Leagues historian, attended 9/25/65 game at age 15: There was energy in the ballpark, a lot of anticipation about “What would this 59-year-old man that we have heard so much about do? Would he live up to the hype?”

TOMMIE REYNOLDS, A’s leftfielder for 9/25/65 game at age 24: I didn’t really believe that he was going to pitch in a game. I was afraid somebody would hit a ball back through the middle. (Editor’s note: Reynolds died March 19 at age 83.)

RICO PETROCELLI, Red Sox infielder, age 22 in September 1965: All of us had a meeting and the manager, [Hall of Famer] Billy Herman, said, “try not to hit up the middle.” We thought he’d be throwing 60 miles an hour, it was just a promotion. All of us were concerned, we knew he was Satchel Paige, one of the all-time greats. We knew it was a promotion, obviously, and thought, “he’s older, he won’t throw hard, we’ll get some hits, maybe knock him out of the box and fans will have gotten to see him pitch.”

WAYNE CAUSEY, A’s third baseman in 9/25/65 game at age 28 (the oldest player in the A’s lineup that night): I remember I was playing as deep as I could get. I was afraid they’d hit it so hard that I wouldn’t catch it and they’d kill me.

JOHN O’DONOGHUE, A’s pitcher, age 25 in September 1965: All the lights went out and they put on the BIC lighters and there was a spotlight put on Satchel, and they said, “Kansas City’s own Satchel Paige,” and the place just went goofy.

PAMELA PAIGE O’NEAL: And that was a huge honor, for him and of course for our family. And a huge round of applause.

LARRY STAHL, A’s outfielder, pinch-hit in 9/25/65 game at age 24: I didn’t know what to expect. He had all kinds of pitches and the ball moved a lot. He really did surprise, that a man that age could throw the ball really good, not throwing that hard.

BOB DULIBA, Red Sox pitcher, age 30 in September 1965: I couldn’t wait for it, from all the things I’d read and heard. It was awesome; all our guys were in the same boat, thought it was awesome. I was amazed he could still throw strikes, and our guys couldn’t do anything with him.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER RED RUSH: For Satch Paige, it’ll be Jim Gosger, Dalton Jones and Carl Yastrzemski in that order here in the first inning of play.

JOHN O’DONOGHUE: When he threw the first strike, the stands went wild. It was quite an experience, it really was.

RICO PETROCELLI: Holy Jeez, oh my god, he’s throwing hard. Our mouths were open, seeing this guy throw pitches that sunk a foot. It was incredible; we were a good-hitting team. In one sense, we were in awe of him, but he just had great stuff. It was really a surprise. It was one of the great thrills of my career. I’m glad Finley picked the Red Sox. I wish I would have been in the lineup.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE FIRST INNING: Two balls, two strikes. Now the Red Sox players down in the dugout, and that’s gonna be an interesting thing to watch here for a while, all hiding their head and laughing at Gosger. Paige is looking over into that dugout as if to say, “You might get your chance too, buddy.” Bryan gives a target to Satch. He takes the double pump, holds that ball over his head, curls the leg around and throws. There’s a pop-up. Out behind first base, Rosario’s going back near the stands, under the ball. Satchel Paige has got one out! (CHEERING)

JIM GOSGER, Red Sox outfielder and leadoff hitter in 9/25/65 game at age 22: We didn’t know what he was going to throw, how he threw. I was the first man up. When I come back to the bench, somebody said to me, “How’s he throwing?” I said, “Pretty darn good for a 59-year-old man.” I said, “It’s amazing, I just can’t imagine how well he would’ve pitched when he was younger.”

DAVE MOREHEAD, Red Sox pitcher, age 22 in September 1965: It was probably more like an exhibition game where guys were having a lot of fun. Yeah, it was definitely a different atmosphere.

JIM GOSGER: Oh my God, the people were crazy. The excitement, every time he got somebody out they were cheering, they were clapping. Usually when you play a game, nothing happens till the end of the inning.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE FIRST: Bouncing ball down the first-base line. It’ll be fielded by Rosario. He fumbles the ball, and Jones is safe at first, going around him. Rosario, who is known as a fine defensive ballplayer, tried to pick that ball up. He had an easy tag out on Jones going by if he’d have just picked it up, but he bobbled the ball, and Jones is safe at first.

DALTON JONES, Red Sox third baseman and second hitter in 9/25/65 game at age 21: I had known the name Satchel Paige all my life; my daddy played in the St. Louis Browns organization and said he was a great pitcher. I do recall saying, “Lord, don’t let me strike out.” I didn’t want to get struck out by a guy that age. That had to be going through the minds of our other guys, too. He was ahead from the start, because he had you thinking that.

JIM LONBORG, Red Sox pitcher, age 23 in September 1965: We were a s—ty team, they were a s—ty team and I think we were just trying to win a ballgame. Sitting there watching, talking with our hitters, nobody wanted to be the guy to strike out.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE FIRST: Here’s a pitch to Yastrzemski. Got away from Bryan. Went right through his mitt. Down to second base goes Dalton Jones. He’s gonna try for third. Bryan picks the ball up, throws it down there. They’ve got him. He’s out! (CHEERING)

BILL BRYAN, A’s catcher for 9/25/65 game at age 26: I had a good arm and I don’t think they should’ve been surprised that I threw him out. (laugh)

JIM GOSGER: It was funny, Dalton didn’t run real good, he was average speed-wise. When he got in after he got thrown out, everybody looked at him and says, “You’re not real quick, Dalton. What are you doing?” He says, “I had to stretch it, try to see if I could get to third.”

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE FIRST: Three balls and no strikes. Great control pitcher of the past is behind Yastrzemski. Here it comes. There’s a drive towards left field, hit pretty well. Reynolds going back. He’s at the fence. It’s gonna be over his head, off the wall. Tartabull backs the play up and holds Yastrzemski to a double off the left-field wall.

CARL YASTRZEMSKI, Red Sox outfielder and third hitter in 9/25/65 game at age 26: I didn’t think he’d throw as hard as he did, he had a good live fastball and that’s all he threw to me. I didn’t think of anything except trying to get a hit. When I first hit the ball, I thought it was out. It was against the left centerfield wall and bounced back. I was so happy to get a hit off him. When I was standing at second, I wanted to tip my hat to him, because I couldn’t believe what he was doing.

RICK SUTCLIFFE, MLB pitcher, Cy Young Award winner, attended 9/25/65 game at age 9: He gave up a hit in the first, the Yaz double, and then was cruising. The last home run Yaz hit in his career was off me (home run No. 452, at Cleveland, Sept. 10, 1983, on the anniversary of Paige signing with the A’s).

SKIP LOCKWOOD, A’s third baseman, age 19 in September 1965: I didn’t think he’d go an inning. I didn’t know if he could reach home plate. When I look back at it, I should have taken it seriously. I was thinking it was part of the circus. He was a darned good pitcher even at that age and took it seriously. All of us were witness to something historic, I failed to realize it. I wish I had.

JACK AKER, A’s pitcher, age 25 in September 1965: He gave them nothing down the middle. You could see he was relaxed. He was older than our fathers, this was making us look bad. (laugh)

The exultant crowd and two stunned teams saw Paige throw just 28 pitches in his three innings, with the only hit the first inning double by Yastrzemski, who was a batboy in 1950 when Paige struck out his father in a Riverhead, New York, semipro game. Paige stranded Yastrzemski at second base, using his famed hesitation pitch to get 1965 American League home run champ Tony Conigliaro to pop out – the first of seven straight Boston batters Paige retired.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE THIRD: Here’s the 0-1 pitch. Change up from the hesitation, popped up to the shortstop, Campaneris. Campy’s back. He’s got it. (CHEERING) Mike Ryan almost fell down chasing that one. Satch threw a hesitation pitch changeup, looped it I’d say maybe 10, 12 feet high.

RANDY SCHWARTZ, A’s first baseman, age 21 in September 1965: When Ryan swung, I thought he was going to break his back against that hesitation pitch.

LARRY LESTER: The hesitation pitch is very simple. The foot hits the ground before the arm comes around. A delayed release of the baseball. And it would throw the timing off of the batter.

DAVE MOREHEAD: I saw a string bean kind of looking guy, it seemed like he had really long arms. One thing that I was kind of looking forward to was his hesitation pitch. I’d heard about that, and I was glad he did do it. It was kind of cool.

RANDY SCHWARTZ: It was amazing to see his hesitation pitch, he would throw it hard or soft. Literally winds up, steps, stops and throws – hitters had a very hard time, it was unlike against anybody else.

DAVE MOREHEAD: I think we thought we were gonna hit the ball all around the park. Guys were trying to jack the ball and he was changing speeds. He never threw the same pitch the same speed consecutively, and from that aspect, it was really something to see. He had fantastic control.

CARL YASTRZEMSKI: I just couldn’t believe somebody that old was pitching – and that well. I think everybody was amazed and our hitters couldn’t believe they didn’t get a hit.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE THIRD: He’s pitching now to Bill Monbouquette, the Red Sox pitcher … There’s the pitch. Swing and a miss. Strike three. He got him! (CHEERING)

DAVE MOREHEAD: I remember that we had a lot of laughs with Monbo and giving him a little ribbing. (LAUGH) And it was good, it was fun.

LARRY LESTER: In 1990, I wrote to each ballplayer on both teams a questionnaire about “What was it like playing that game?” I did keep all those letters. Excerpts from the late Bill Monbouquette’s questionnaire: I remember our guys saying, “I’m going to hit one off of the old man.” He mowed us down like taking candy from a baby. It really was a shame he never got the chance to pitch in the M.L. for a long period of time. Baseball really missed not only a great pitcher but a great showman.

JIM LONBORG: His velocity was decent – the one thing I remember is that everything moved, he didn’t throw anything straight. He was very skinny, very frail looking, but he had some great gifts from God that allowed him to be smooth and agile. He had a very fluid delivery, was very limber and loose and had a great idea of where it was going.

TOMMIE REYNOLDS: I was amazed, flabbergasted, for a man of that age, moving the way he did – he wasn’t very spry moving off the mound – they swung and tried. He had a lot of pride that he could do it.

DON BUSCHHORN, A’s pitcher, age 19 in September 1965: I just remember thinking, “How the hell is he doing that?” It was like, “this can’t be real, it’s too easy.” When I think about it, it was like one of the eight wonders of the world, to do that at his age.

BILL BRYAN: Every once in a while, he would throw one pretty good speed, and I think that surprised some of the hitters and he just kept ’em off stride. It gets to be irritating that you can’t just hit it like you want to. And they didn’t.

JIM GOSGER: He wasn’t overpowering, I would say probably in the mid-80s. But the best thing about him pitching was the fact that everything was from the belt down. And he was so consistent. I can’t imagine how hard he threw when he was younger. I mean, he was that good and it was very impressive. And it was fun playing against him, I mean, he embarrassed us. He really did.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCER MONTE MOORE, TOP OF THE THIRD: There’s interest in this ballgame all over the United States tonight. Bryan giving the target to Satchel. Gosger cocks the bat. Paige delivers. Bouncing ball to the shortstop’s right. Campaneris digs it out, strong throw to first base. He got him! (CHEERING) Three up and three down. Paige has retired seven in a row. So in the middle of the third inning, the score: Kansas City one, Boston nothing.

JIM GOSGER: The thing that really got me, I was the last man to face him, and I had grounded out and I’m running to get my glove, and he grabbed my arm, and it scared me. I turned around and he just looked at me, had a smile on his face, and he said, “Good luck, young man.” And I thought, “Wow.” I said, “Thank you, sir.” And that’s something I will never forget. You know, coming from a man of his stature to just take the time to say something like that to me, being a young player. I can remember it as if it was yesterday. He was just a gentleman, and he didn’t have to do what he did, that shows a lot of class. I had a few great memories, but this was probably the tops. It’s just enjoyable to even think about it.

FROM A’s RADIO BROADCAST – ANNOUNCERS MONTE MOORE AND RED RUSH, TOP OF THE FOURTH: Satchel Paige is on the mound. Haywood Sullivan has gone out. He’s gonna take Satch out of the ballgame here. (BOOS) … Segui is just about now on the mound. He’s been given the baseball. Satch shakes his hand. And here he comes. (CHEERING). Satchel Paige is getting a standing ovation, and he has twice doffed his cap to the crowd here and actually bowed to them. The A’s players in the dugout standing at attention as Satch comes by. They’re clapping hands. … Whether he is 23, 53, 63, or 73, as some say, he really showed a lot of people that he still has that old love of the game and, boy, his arm is still there. What a guy, Satchel Paige.

DIEGO SEGUI, A’s pitcher, relieved Paige in 9/25/65 game at age 28: You thought the Boston Red Sox would kill him, but it was the opposite, he made it look easy. You see what experience can do to fool people. You see somebody do something like that at that age, it’s special. For the rest of your life, you never forget it. I congratulated him before he left the mound, then he disappeared. (Editor’s note: Segui died June 24 at age 87.)

RICK SUTCLIFFE: He went out in the fourth and I remember my grandfather telling us to stand up. Sixty years later, I remember the ovation and thinking it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. It gave me goose bumps. Maybe I thought I’ll get an ovation like that someday. There’s not a doubt in my mind that it had an impact on my love of the game.

When Kansas City rookie manager Haywood Sullivan – a quarter-century Paige’s junior – took the ball from him at the start of the fourth, the A’s led 1-0, but they ultimately fell 5-2 to the ninth-place Red Sox and failed to pull within a half-game of Boston with eight games left. Paige disappeared into the clubhouse, but was summoned back, as fans stood and celebrated him, singing “The Old Gray Mare.”

FRANK WHITE, MLB All-Star second baseman, saw 9/25/65 game at age 14: He reportedly pitched over 2,500 games, 50 no-hitters, so to me that’s mystical when you can do something like that. And you can say, “I saw him pitch at 59, three innings of no-run baseball, and he walked off the mound with his head up.” Based on what people talk about of Satchel, he probably said to himself, “I told you I could do it.” I just really feel blessed that I got to see the greatest pitcher in baseball history pitch that night.

PAMELA PAIGE O’NEAL: For people who are sports enthusiasts and historians, it would be like a gladiator. He went out and did something no one thought he could do, that goes down in the annals of time. How many other people can say that at 59 they were at the epitome of holding down three innings with a pitching arm that had pitched, I can’t imagine, since the time he left school? But he could automatically get himself in shape and do an outstanding job.

LARRY LESTER: It got rid of any doubts that the hyperbole about Satchel Paige was right on point. I just look at the anniversary as a time to reflect, a time to reminisce about what ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda’ happened. He could have been one of the greatest pitchers in integrated Major League Baseball ever. It showed me that maybe this man was just as fantastic as his story was and even more so. I became even more involved with learning more about the Negro Leagues. Curiosity became my philosophy.

PAUL FINLEY, Charlie Finley’s son, attended 9/25/65 game at age 12: I remember my dad at the end saying, “Wasn’t that something? You’ll remember this.”

PAMELA PAIGE O’NEAL: I was happy for my dad; it was his last opportunity to shine. I think it was huge for him and he was quite pleased. Now I’m shamelessly full of joy, pride, all of the good things. He just did not get the opportunity when he was at the zenith of his career. And that’s unfortunate.

RENE LACHEMANN, A’s catcher, age 20 in September 1965: My wish would’ve been that 20, 30 years earlier people could’ve experienced the greatness of this guy as a pitcher in Major League Baseball and he would’ve been able to be seen by the entire United States of America. It’s just a shame that a lot of people didn’t get the knowledge that he had, to find out what made him the pitcher that he was. He would probably have the best command of any major league pitcher in the history of the game and that’s something you don’t see now at all. Everybody’s just interested in the [radar] gun reading at 100-plus miles an hour; they don’t want to see inside, outside, up, down.

PAMELA PAIGE O’NEAL: I just know that he was never an unhappy person, that he understood how life was and things presented themselves to him. He taught us to always keep moving forward like he did. I’m always glad that his name is mentioned, that someone cares about his accomplishments, that people still want to read, report and do research about him. Those are the things that keep his legacy alive. Those are the things that bring joy to me and my family.

In the clubhouse after the game, Paige noted that “everyone doubted me on the ballclub.”  He thanked Finley in what was reported to be their first face-to-face meeting, and Finley said, “Nothing in baseball has ever given me more satisfaction.” The A’s owner said he hoped to bring Paige back as a coach the next year and get him closer to pension qualification, but it didn’t happen.

All these years later, intrigue envelopes Paige’s pitching and life, including the 1965 game and festivities, from which hardly any film is available – typical for most of his prolific career. And there are few known artifacts around from 1965 other than his contract, which sports auction house REA sold for $48,000 in 2015. (Editor’s note: Paige’s 1965 contract was resold at auction in April for $66,000)

On African American Heritage Night in Oakland last June, the Athletics (Finley moved the A’s to the Bay Area after the 1967 season, won three straight World Series from 1972-74 and sold the team in 1980) distributed bobbleheads of Paige in a rocking chair to the crowd of 9,158 – an attendance figure 131 lower than for the 1965 game that inspired the collectible. The team commissioned 10,000 of the bobbleheads in tribute to the man and his incomparable achievement in his only game for the A’s.

Satchel Paige never appeared in another MLB game after the history he made on Sept. 25, 1965, but he did become eligible for a pension in 1969. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and died in 1982. 

Coverage in 1965 and since of what Paige did with the A’s has almost invariably mentioned the rocking chair, often including images of Paige in it and a nurse alongside, but not a hint about the saga of the chair.  

In a January follow-up interview with Paul Finley, two months after our first one, he said he’d made some inquiries and learned a little bit about the rocking chair’s fate. “It was sold,” he said. “My dad took a lot of furniture to a company in Indiana to sell, probably a few years before he died (in 1996). The furniture company is out of business.” Finley didn’t have any other information on either the company or the chair.

Further reporting for this story led to the furniture business owner, Bruce Rippe, who said he first learned about the chair from Finley in the early 1980s.

“He called me one day and said, ‘I’d like you to reproduce the rocking chair, and we’ll market it as having belonged to William Howard Taft,’ ” Rippe said, adding, “Charlie was the consummate salesperson, he said some senator gave it to Taft.” 

Rippe said he told Finley that without authentication of the White House connection, the proposition was a non-starter. Not long after, the two men hauled the hefty rocker to a nursing home in Cincinnati, where Taft’s octogenarian son Charlie – the city’s former mayor – resided. But Charlie Taft told Charlie Finley he didn’t recognize the chair as having belonged to his father, who died in 1930. Nevertheless, Finley had a photo taken of the former president’s son in the chair, and gave him an autographed orange baseball, one of Finley’s innovations that never quite took hold.

A decade after that, according to Rippe, Finley asked him to sell the chair and other furniture, and Rippe complied.

“The rocking chair sold in a day,” Rippe recounted. “It was a very unusual, ginormous chair. The back was about 55 inches tall and it was about 30 inches wide. It was in very good shape, nothing at all loose or rickety. It was not your grandmother’s rocking chair, this was a one-off.”

As for the buyer, Rippe said he was a Cincinnati-area dealer of European cars who liked the chair, as well as the Paige and Taft stories, and thought the rocker would be a nice addition to his showroom. But Rippe didn’t remember his name and said the person who would know it had died three weeks earlier and left no family.

Then, nearly two weeks later, Rippe said he had good news. He had come up with the name of the purchaser – and even found him.

But that wasn’t all.

Steve Burkhart, the man who bought the chair from Rippe, still had it.  

Contacted for this story, Burkhart said, “I paid $2,000 for it. The rocking chair has been sitting in my house or car lot since then.”

When he bought the chair more than 30 years ago, the selling price was non-negotiable, Burkhart said. “I tried, I am a car dealer, but I was told that if Charlie didn’t get the price he wanted, he’d donate it to the Hall of Fame. It’s a huge damned chair. You’ll never see another like it; it’s amazingly impressive, bigger than life.”

Burkhart said he received a yellow folder with some photos when he made the purchase three decades ago, including one of Charlie Taft in the chair, but he’s not sure of the whereabouts of the folder or its contents. 

As for the chair itself, it remains in top condition, according to Burkhart, because few have sat in it and he moved it to his house to protect it after it was at his used car dealership for about five years.

The 73-year-old Burkhart said he still sells cars, but he wouldn’t sell the chair, “unless it had significance to somebody who’d be willing to pay for something irreplaceable in history.

“I love the chair.”