5. Satchel Paige – “Nobody hits the Satchel” he once said. And shit, he was pretty much right. He once walked guys to get to Joe DiMaggio in an interleague game. The man pitched in the big leagues at age 59. He nicknamed pitches, in the freaking 1930′s. True innovator and legend. In a legendary, movie-like story he faced the best hitter in the negro leagues, Josh Gibson, after, of course walking the bases loaded to get to him. That wasn’t enough. He went on to yell at Gibby, making it clear which pitch was coming. Then, he struck him out. The guy once asked his outfielders to just sit down behind the mound. I mean, you can’t make that stuff up. Sounds to me like he basically created the Globetrotters act for them. But he was playing for real. And he was the best pitcher in the world for quite some time while flaunting it. “I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I would toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.” Read it and weap. Probably the coolest of the cool on the cocky countdown. The man was even cocky for his friends when they didn’t want to be. He once said of his pal, Cool Pappa Bell, “”If Cool Papa had known about colleges or if colleges had known about Cool Papa, Jesse Owens would have looked like he was walking.” I could go on rappin’ about Satchel all day…
