Efforts are underway in Kansas City to restore the house of legendary Negro League and Major League Baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. City officials hope to find a contractor to redevelop the home and have issued a request for proposals. Commentator Rex Buchanan recently paid a visit to final resting place of Satchel Paige and, to the resting place of another Kansas City icon.
Commentator Rex Buchanan is a Lawrence-based writer. He's also director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey and the co-author of the book Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills, published by University Press of Kansas.
(Transcript)
I needed a pandemic day trip. So I visited a couple of places I’d been meaning to go for a long time. Two cemeteries. They’re outdoors. Not many people around. At least living people.
And not just any cemeteries. I was looking for the graves two of the most iconic figures associated with Kansas City: Satchel Paige and Charlie Parker. Satchel was from Mobile, Alabama, and Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas. Both are buried in Kansas City, Missouri.
Leroy “Satchel” Paige was, of course, was among the most famous, longest-lasting baseball players of the 20th century. He played in the Negro leagues, including with the Kansas City Monarchs, and in the majors with Cleveland and the St. Louis Browns. In 1965, he pitched for the Kansas City A’s. He died in 1982 at age 75.
I’ve talked to lots of people who claim they saw him during his barnstorming years, but I never saw him play. I sure wish I had.
Charlie Parker is recognized as a musical genius. Known as Bird, he pushed the boundaries of the saxophone and is credited with developing bebop. He played with Dizzy Gillespie and Jay McShann and Theolonius Monk. And he struggled with drug addiction before dying in 1955 at only 34.
Satchel is buried in Forest Hill Memorial Park at 63rd and Troost. It’s a big place with lots of impressive mausoleums, clearly the cemetery of choice for influential Kansas Citians back in the day. Satchel’s grave is marked by a monument, his wife Lahoma Jean next to him. On the back of the monument is Satchel’s advice for staying young, including my favorite, “The social ramble ain’t restful.”
The day I was there, the monument had a couple of baseballs, and a few small stones, sitting on it. Cars came and went in the cemetery, but nobody else visited Satchel.
Charlie Parker is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, atop a hill off of Truman Road on the way to Independence. It’s a smaller, more isolated place, historically for African-Americans. No ostentatious monuments, just headstones interspersed between towering cedar trees. Parker’s grave is flat to the ground, next to his mother, Adelaide. About the only nod to his fame is a small saxophone engraved on the slab covering his grave. Visitors had left a few coins on that slab, but I only saw one other vehicle, a pickup whose driver needed a quiet place to carry on a cell phone conversation.
These two graves seem to reflect the men they shelter. Satchel’s monument is big, like his personality, in the middle of the action, if that’s possible in a cemetery. Bird’s grave is subtle, subdued, in what seems like a lonely place, maybe indicative of his troubled life.
As I headed back to Lawrence, I wondered a little at the lack of visitors, especially at Parker’s resting place. Satchel and Bird were giants, their names indelibly associated with Kansas City and two things the city is known for: baseball and jazz. Maybe I came on a slow day. Maybe they get lots of visitors. I hope so.
Then again, maybe there’s another way to honor them. When’re finally free to catch a concert or a ball game, maybe think of Bird and Satchel when we hear somebody blowing the sax or a baseball smacking a catcher’s mitt.
- 30 -