“Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you” put Satchel Paige in “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.” His exploits on the diamond landed him in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, the first player to be enshrined for his Negro Leagues performance.

Paige was born 118 years ago today in Mobile, one of the five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame to take his first breath in the Port City.

The record now says Paige was born on July 7, 1906. But pick any year from 1901 and 1909, and there’s a news source that, at some point, has listed it as Paige’s birth year.

Paige managed to become a famous baseball player while barred from the segregated big leagues, so even if he kept his age from being nailed down at 42 when he reached the newly integrated Major Leagues in 1948 as the first Black pitcher in the American League, reporters and fans had been aware of Paige for years.

Paige told reporters who inquired about his age that a goat had eaten his birth certificate and Methuselah had been his bat boy. Or as he was fond of asking: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?

Paige naturally was asked for his secret to athletic longevity. His answers to one interviewer came to be called his “Six Rules for Staying Young” or “Six Rules for a Happy Life:”

1. Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4. Go very light on the vices such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.

RELATED: HANK AARON, SATCHEL PAIGE COME HOME: A LOOK AT NEW STATUES IN MOBILE AND WHAT’S TO COME

Paige spent nearly six years in the Alabama Reform School for Juvenile Negro Law-Breakers, sentenced while 11 years old. At Mount Meigs, coach Edward Byrd taught Paige the game of baseball. “You might say I traded five years of freedom to learn how to pitch,” Paige said.

And Paige pitched as a pro in five decades and did so for dozens of teams from Alaska to South America. That included the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League from 1927 through 1930.

The Major Leagues came to the Black Barons’ ballpark on June 20 for “MLB at Rickwood: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues.” While the San Francisco Giants-St. Louis Cardinals game was the first National League contest at Rickwood Field, it wasn’t the first Major League game played there.

In 2020, Major League Baseball recognized the game played in 49 selected seasons of seven Negro Leagues as Major League-quality, meaning it was comparable to the baseball being played in its own American and National leagues during the sport’s period of segregated professional circuits.

Nineteen of those retroactive Major League seasons included the residents of Rickwood Field, so Paige’s Major League debut came as a 20-year-old with Birmingham in 1927, not with the Cleveland Indians in 1948, as the record showed for 72 years.

Between his two MLB debuts, Paige burnished his reputation in competition beyond the Negro Leagues. During the offseason in Paige’s heyday, top baseball players sometimes would supplement their incomes with barnstorming tours, traveling to places outside the 10 cities with big-league teams. Paige headlined teams of Negro Leaguers that opposed squads of American and National League players led first by Dizzy Dean and then by Bob Feller.

Dean said Paige was the best pitcher he’d ever seen. “My fastball looks like a change-of-pace alongside that little pistol bullet ol’ Satchel shoots up to the plate,” Dean said. Feller called Paige the “best pitcher,” and Ted Williams called him the “greatest pitcher.” Joe DiMaggio called Paige “the best I’ve ever faced, and the fastest.”

In 1944, Paige had a 1.01 earned-run average for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. That is now the third-lowest single-season ERA in Major League history, behind Tim Keefe’s 0.86 for the Troy Trojans in 1880 and Dutch Leonard’s 0.96 for the Boston Red Sox in 1914, after Major League Baseball incorporated records from the recognized Negro Leagues into its record book in May.

Paige’s 6-1 record down the stretch after joining Cleveland helped the Indians win the 1948 pennant. He had four more MLB seasons ahead of him, including two as an All-Star, plus three full minor-league campaigns. Paige was pitching regularly for the Miami Marlins of the Triple-A International League at 52, going 10-10 with a 2.95 earned-run average in 1958.

Paige’s final big-league appearance was a publicity stunt dreamed up by Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley, who just two nights before Paige’s return to the Majors had held Bert Campaneris Appreciation Night, during which the Kansas City shortstop played one inning at each of the nine positions.

Paige started a game between two also-ran teams on Sept. 25, 1965. He pitched the first three innings against the Boston Red Sox, giving up one hit – a ground-rule double to future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski – and struck out one without walking a batter. Paige threw 28 pitches – a number less than half his age.

When Paige died in 1982, nine other players from the Negro Leagues had been enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Today, there are 37.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.