The story of Leroy "Satchel" Paige, the legendary pitcher, from his barnstorming days in the '20s, hoping to break into organized Negro baseball, to his emergence at age 43 in the major leagues with the Cleveland Indians the year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. Paige, who died in 1982, appears briefly as himself in the film's epilogue. Director Richard A. Colla replaced the originally scheduled George C. Scott.