Before Jackie Robinson, there was Satchel Paige and Magic Johnson is helping tell his story.
Johnson is producing a drama series about Satchel Paige and the Negro League Baseball for Apple Studios, which gained the rights to Donald Spivey’s non-fiction book, If You Were Only White: The Life of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige.
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The series will be based on Spivey’s book and will explore the epic and remarkable story of Negro League Baseball, an all-Black league that played during the segregation era before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. It will tell the story through the life and legacy of the legendary athlete and showman Leroy “Satchel” Paige.
He was one of baseball’s greatest pitchers and star of Negro Leagues for many years. Paige, a Hall of Famer, played with a number of Negro League teams before making his Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians in 1948.
Within the Negro Baseball League were seven different professional organizations. Those Negro Leagues existed between 1920 and 1948. In December, Major League Baseball formally classified the seven Negro Leagues as major league franchises, thus adding the records and statistics of some 3,400 players to the ledger.
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The high-profile Negro League Baseball project comes from Johnson, Mandelay’s Peter Guber, and Ron Shelton. Shelton was behind sports film classics White Men Can’t Jump. The project will be executive produced by Johnson, Shelton, John Mass, Jason Smith and Kapital’s Kaplan. Kevin Marco will oversee the project for Kapital.
Apple Studios co-produces with Kapital Entertainment and they are partnering with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich history of African American baseball.
The project is also supported by MLB.