Written By: Bill Syken
Spring training is a beloved ritual for baseball fans, heralding both the end of winter and the start of a new season. LIFE magazine loved to cover spring training. On this site you will find stories on the year the Dodgers held spring training in Havana and also on the legendary Dodgertown spring training complex in Vero Beach, Florida.
In 1952 LIFE turned its focus to the training camp of the St. Louis Browns. The main angle of LIFE’s story was about new owner Bill Veeck hiring the great Rogers Hornsby as his new manager to shake up a team that had finished last and was full of disgruntled players. The great promise of that spring renewal would prove false—Veeck fired Hornsby in June, much to the delight of the players who hated the hard ways of the seven-time batting champ.
But while Hornsby was the primary focus, photographer Edward Clark also captured some pictures of the other certified baseball legend in Browns camp that year, Satchel Paige. The greatest pitcher in the history of the Negro Leagues, Paige was well past his prime when baseball finally integrated in 1947. In LIFE’s 1952 story he was only mentioned in a photo caption: “Oldest pitcher in the majors, Satchel Paige, probably over 50, is still effective for two or three innings. He is also the clubhouse comedian.”
Paige and Veeck were both singular characters. Veeck was a rare and imaginative impresario who once livened up the long summer of a losing team by signing midget Eddie Gaedel as a publicity stunt. Paige memorably bestowed on baseball his six rules for keeping young.
There is no record of what Paige and Veeck were talking about when Clark photographed them in the clubhouse of the Browns’ spring training facility in Burbank, California. But merely seeing them together is a reminder of a plan Veeck once had for bringing Negro League stars into major league baseball years before Jackie Robinson broke the sport’s color barrier.
In his autobiography Veeck wrote that in 1943 he had an agreement to buy the Philadelphia Phillies, with the intention of stocking the roster with the greatest stars of the Negro Leagues, which would surely have included Paige. Veeck wrote that the sale was quashed when his designs were learned. Baseball historians have since disputed the notion that the plan was as far along as Veeck claimed, and whether anyone actually quashed anything. But there is no doubt that Veeck was on the progressive side of history when it came to integration—soon after the Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson to the majors, Veeck signed Larry Doby, the majors’ second Black player, to the team he owned then, then Cleveland Indians. And in 1978, when Veeck owned the Chicago White Sox, he made Doby baseball’s second Black manager.
It’s nice to imagine that, during the slower-paced days of spring training, Veeck might have wanted to speculate with Paige about what an all-Black Phillies team might have accomplished in 1943. It’s also nice to imagine that Paige might have responded to Veeck with the most famous of his six rules for staying young: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
Bill Veeck (left) and Satchel Paige (center) in the clubhouse at spring training for the St. Louis Browns, 1952.
Ed Clark/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Bill Veeck (left) and Satchel Paige (center) in the clubhouse at spring training for the St. Louis Browns, 1952.
Baseball St. Louis Browns
Bill Veeck (left) and Satchel Paige (center) in the clubhouse at spring training for the St. Louis Browns in Burbank, California, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Bill Veeck (left) and Satchel Paige (center) in the clubhouse at spring training for the St. Louis Browns in Burbank, California, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Satchel Paige pitched at spring training for the St. Louis Browns in Burbank, California, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
New St. Louis Browns manager Rogers Hornsby signaled for a baserunner to stop during a spring training game, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
New St. Louis Browns manager Rogers Hornsby (left) spoke with team owner Bill Veeck during spring training, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Manager Rogers Hornsby instructed his players at spring training for the St. Louis Browns in 1952; he would be fired three months into his first season with the team.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Browns owner Bill Veeck (center), at spring training in Burbank, Calif., read a column picking the Browns to finish in first place in American League, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Louis Browns manager Rogers Hornsby (right) drew a line in the dirt to cautiion Clint Courtney against crowding during spring training in Burbank, California, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Satchel Paige pitched at spring training for the St. Louis Browns in Burbank, California, 1952.
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
