Many of us have heard of Cy Young, whose immortalized name adorns the award given to the best pitchers each year in Major League Baseball. When we debate who’s the greatest pitcher of all time, we hear names like Young, Nolan Ryan, Walter Johnson and others.

What many might not know is that if baseball had been integrated twenty years sooner than it was in 1947 by the immortal Jackie Robinson, it is not out of the question that the Cy Young award might today be named the Satchel Paige award and there would be plenty arguing for his name to be included in, or at the very top of, the list of the greatest pitchers. As talented as he was with the ball, he was an equally talented showman and personality who did more than most to help bring about baseball’s long overdue integration.