Simulating Satchel: A What-If History of Integrated Major League Baseball in 1934

By John Graf

In this book, the author creates a multi-dimensional simulation, a "Utopian Baseball Fantasy," to explore the context and significance of a 1934 major league season featuring integration. Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige and nearly 100 of his Negro Leagues contemporaries are freed from the ban of the sport's color line and added to the exclusionary American and National Leagues. It features previews in a condensed preseason Sweet & Fleet's yearbook, including commentary, rosters, predictions, and interviews. Pennant races from opening day through the World Series are chronicled in the fictional journalism of The Blackball Watcher as Dizzy Dean, Babe Ruth, and notables from the entertainment world co-star with Paige. The scribes, including fictionalized real-life reporters, examine with the author and season ticket bearing readers an alternative baseball integration story that opens the way to more deeply consider the issue of racial justice in baseball and beyond.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1476698058
• ISBN13: 9781476698052
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 269 Pages
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.0" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up