At last

On this day 36 years ago, Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced that Satchel Paige would be the first black player inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame. The fact of Paige's greatness had actually determined this historic date - he had pitched his last game in 1966 and so was not eligible for the Hall until '71, and the Hall of Fame was unanimous in its feeling that Satchel Paige had to be the first black Hall-of-Famer.

Originally, Paige was supposed to be the first inductee into a special Negro wing of the Hall, but as the year wore on, that idea rightfully met with a shitstorm of criticism for its overtones of a "separate but equal" Hall of Fame. Eventually, Kuhn announced that there would be no Negro wing, that the black players elected would have their plaques amongst the rest of the Hall of Fame plaques.