7/1/2011:
What would it be like to see greatness up-close and personally? In baseball, what would it be like to try to get a base hit off a Hall of Fame pitcher? On this date in 1959, a young man from Velva named Bob Bodine got that chance when he faced legendary pitcher Satchel Paige. Paige was on a barnstorming tour with a team called the Havana Cubans, and the game was in Minot at the baseball field just south of Roosevelt Park near the Mouse River.
At age 53, Paige was slated to pitch just two innings, the fourth and fifth, and he pretty much expected to face only six batters. Bob Bodine and his Velva teammates were eager to get a chance to bat against the great African-American pitcher. As Bob Bodine tells the story, he recalled that Paige appeared “very held back,” as if this was merely another game among the 2,500 games in his storied career. Paige arrived late and “didn’t even warm up,” said Bodine in a recent interview. Paige sat in a rocking chair in the dugout, and when it came time to pitch, the great pitcher “sauntered” to the mound” and took “just a half-dozen pitches” and proclaimed himself ready.
Uncharacteristically, Paige walked Velva’s first batter, Wally Parnell. Up next was Bob Bodine, a student at Minot State College and a three-sport star. Bodine had a plan, trying to hit the first pitch, figuring Paige might groove a fastball after having walked Parnell. The plan worked, as Bodine “jumped on the first pitch Paige threw, and ripped a pretty good line drive off the wall” and trotted into second base with a stand-up double, driving in Parnell.
Paige, surprised at Bodine’s smash, then focused intensely. Paige had “a lot of pride,” recalled Bodine, and he got two quick strikes on the next Velva hitter, then Paige “came in with a great big curve ball and struck him out.”
Paige retired the next five Velva batters on a strikeout and easy fielding plays. The Havana Cubans won the game 10 to 2 and 563 fans got to see one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Satchel Paige would be inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1971.
And Bob Bodine? He graduated from Minot State College and served as a teacher for twenty years at Fessenden, Beulah, and Sawyer; and for ten years in South Carolina.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, History Department, MSU Moorhead.
Sources: “Cubans Rap Velva 10-2: Paige Here,” Minot Daily News, July 2, 1959, p. 10.
“Paige Due In Minot,” Minot Daily News, July 1, 1959, p. 18.
Telephone interview with Bob Bodine, Seymour, Illinois, by Steve Hoffbeck, June 8, 2011, notes in the possession of the author.
“Satchel Paige, Black Pitching Star, Is Dead at 75,”New York Times, June 9, 1982, p. B16.
"Paige is First Star of Old Negro Leagues to Be Selected," New York Times, February 10, 1971, p. 52.