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This would never fly today: Satchel Paige would have been considered a terrorist

In researching today’s entry for hit-and-run bag, I cited a 1971 article from the Charleston Gazette that also told an more interesting story about legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. It was not directly related to the cite and was too long to include in the entry, so I offer it to you here.

There’s the story Joe Ryan used to tell about Satch and the miseries he experienced each time he and the Miami Marlins would go into Canada to play.

The customs officials always wanted Paige to open up the little “hit-and-run” bag he carried for his shaving gear and other small articles. This irritated him to no end.

Satch finally decided to put an end to opening this bag time and time again, as if he was a smuggler.

So he purchased a can of aerosol shaving lather, which he knew would explode in the unpressurized cabin of the old airplane they used in those days. And, of course, it did explode—all over the place…

“When that custom official got nosey again and asked Satch to open the bag, he just handed it to him and told him to open it himself,” Ryan recalled. “And when he ripped the zipper open, all that gooey lather squirted out in his face and I thought Satch would die laughing.”

He was never bothered again.

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Grant Barrett