An interesting question, attributed by many people — including the President of the United States — to Satchel Paige. I'm encountering it this morning because Instapundit linked to a Pajamas Media item called "Joe Biden Refers to Satchel Paige as 'The Great Negro.'" Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying to say "the great Negro Leagues pitcher" and got tripped up, perhaps because he knows you're not supposed to say "negro" without "leagues" immediately after it.
Quick! Say "Leagues" or there's big trouble! Could everybody just calm down?
Anyway, Biden was just trying to get to the quote, "How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?" I hadn't seen the thought put like that, which seems a bit like a Zen koan. I like it! I certainly like it much better than the very trite "You're only as old as you feel" or this meme I saw on Facebook recently: "The sad part about getting older is that no one can see you're still young on the inside."
What does "feeling old" consist of? Each of us has our own internal experience, which includes a lot of imagining how other people feel, and if you are old but think you "feel young," aren't you just saying you don't feel the way you — with your anti-oldness prejudice — have ascribed to various old people who are not you? But how do you know how they feel? It's a big bundle of bias.
Anyway, I like the format of the observation in "How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?" But did Satchel Paige originate it? I was pleased to see that Quote Investigator has looked into this already. It found the quote in a 1927 sermon that was discussed in a New York newspaper. Satchel Paige supposedly said it on his 47th birthday, which was in 1953.
Perhaps that preacher, Clarence H. Wilson, got it from somebody else. I wouldn't be surprised if that question has been circulating since ancient times (though I'd never noticed it before).
Quote Investigator finds it in a 1931 commencement address, in a labor-themed speech in 1962, and in a book about education in 1968. Oh, but you're thinking those 60s occurrences must post-date Satchel Paige's statement. But Quote Investigator couldn't find him quoted until 1977:
In 1977 actress Ruth Gordon testified before the U.S. House Select Committee on Aging and attributed the saying to a well-known athlete: “As the great baseball player Satchel Paige once said, ‘How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?’”
In 1978 director Garson Kanin, the spouse of Ruth Gordon, published “It Takes a Long Time To Become Young”, and he also credited Paige with the saying.
Ruth Gordon! Fancy seeing her here.
She's iconic when it comes to the topic of how one feels when old...
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A white college basketball coach at Seattle University was forced to resign this week for using the N word.
If he was black, no problem.
You could ask any 'migrant' heading north over our border.
The guy stooped over with the gray beard will tell you '17' because there are incentives for being a minor.
And because of out idiot government, he will be believed until proved otherwise.
Since I was about 14 I always felt like I was 35. Even now, decades past 35, I sometimes feel the same.
Only the mirror tells me to fuck off : )
P.S. Costco and Safeway...please stop asking me my age when I buy booze. You look like idiots.
Well, since Biden probably does not know how old he is, he is probably a good person to ask that question, and since he is likely unaware of his mental decrepitude, he probably gives a younger number, like the lady I just saw at the supermarket wearing what would have been a fetching fur hat, not pill box, had she not looked like she had just been exhumed complete, with mortuary makeup, probably thinks she looks a lot younger than she does.
Nature is kind to us in that way.
Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying to say "the great Negro Leagues pitcher" and got tripped up, perhaps because he knows you're not supposed to say "negro" without "leagues" immediately after it.
Democrats have an army of supporters ready, winning and able to correct their mistakes so as not to misinterpret.
Republicans have an army of detractors ready, willing and able to read their minds so as to misinterpret.
For most of human history, people didn't know how old they were.
So what if senile Old Joe said Negro or not. I don't like the man, and thought he stole the election, but cut him some slack. Its rather odd that on Veterns Day, Old Senile Brandon is talking about a Black basebally player, but does anyone care?
Why hasn't the title "Negro Baseball Leaugue" been airbrushed or actively renamed changed to Black Baseball league? That way people who pretend to be upset at using the "wrong" word could go upset at something else.
In 1977, Gordon referred to Page as “the great baseball player.”
In 2021, Biden refers to his race.
Paige was a great pitcher. He and Bob Feller were the hardest throwers in baseball in their playing years.
Feller was a great pitcher.
Bob Gibson was a great pitcher. Tom Seaver was a great pitcher.
Biden is obviously a racialist.
There's nothing wrong with Negro. It's sort of unique in that it hasn't developed negative connotations requiring changing to another word every decade or so. It was initially disparaged as an act of defiance rather than as a need for a better word.
"That way people who pretend to be upset at using the "wrong" word could go upset at something else."
The problem here is that they *will* go get upset at something else, and the whole process will just start up all over again.
It would be easier to ignore the idiots and let them stay upset at one thing.
Scary how senile Biden has become.
But even scarier that the senility is so patent, and nobody near him is prepared to intervene. We are supposed to nod and smile.
Could everybody just calm down?
Civility bullshit
"Could everybody just calm down?"
They could, but that would not produce the clicks for which they are angling. Tempesty teapots sell well.
I’ve gotten old enough that when people ask how old I am I have to do the math on what year it is, what year I was born, and whether I have passed my birthday in the current year.
Althouse wrote: "Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently . . ."
There was a time, not that long ago, when Biden could speak fluently.
Search Youtube for footage of Biden's debate with Paul Ryan in 2012. The difference in Biden's ability to speak clearly, then and now, is frightening. And he wasn't reading prepared remarks in the debate with Ryan.
Yet Biden's obvious mental decline over the last nine years is never mentioned in the MSM.
How old would Biden be if you didn't know how old he was?
Biden is a racist and so is the democrat party.
Cry more Ann.
Ruth delivering that "Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room" is one of my all-time favorites.
The formula, I assume, would be:
The Current Year - Earliest Year I can Benchmark from memory + Best estimate of age at Benchmark Memory Year.
My Benchmark year is a visual memory of Mrs. Dorin holding a calendar that said 1967 in kindergarten.
2021 - 1967 + 5 = close enough!
In addition to being a great pitcher, Satchel Paige is in retrospect the Black Mark Twain or Winston Churchill.
Mediaite wasted a lot of space saying what Biden said and that he didn't say it even though he did. Biden may not have meant to say what he said, but he definitely said it. After telling us what Biden "really meant," "fact checkers" should be obligated to add that the reason it doesn't matter is that man is a senile idiot. Truth in reporting, people.
I have a pewter key chain with that inscribed on it, and it's attributed to Ruth Gordon. It was given to me by one of my students. I use to tell the kids, "Act your age, not your shoe size" until this kid pointed out his shoe size was his age. He saw the keychain, and he "bought it" for me. I suspect it came by way of the five-finger discount, but I still use it 20 years later, and he became a policeman.
Sorry but Biden gets no pass from me on speech errors great and small. Trump never got a pass, why should Shoeless Joe Biden?
F. Joe Biden.
I had no problem with Biden using the word "Negroe" appropriately or inappropriately. What I found inapproriate, though hilariously funny, is all the media telling me he didn't really use the word I heard him use. I also don't like being told that Biden only screwed up by not saying the word "leagues" afterwards- it seems really clear from the context that Biden used the word the first time in exactly the way he meant to use it- to describe Paige, and then used it in our modern age's "acceptable" way when talking about the league Paige played in.
When I was younger, a teenager, I felt I was much older. I was delusional at the time. When I was in my twenties, I felt I was the age I would be forever. I was delusional at the time. Today, in my mid fifties, I feel like I did when I was in my twenties, but I am delusional right now and can't be trusted.
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?
I would be 54.
Age is a fact that does not depend on a person's knowledge, belief, or preference.
Kinda like gender.
"How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?"
"How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?" - Abe Lincoln
You know if Orange the Clown had said it, he'd be rightfully ridiculed for it. I see no reason to give Biden the benefit of the doubt either. He screwed up, again.
How old am I in my head?
26
How old is Dopey Joe in his head? Could you repeat the question?
Why is it that after EVERY public remark of Joe Biden, some people feel the need to explain away what he actually said and tell us what he "really" meant?
Not only did Biden muff the Great Negro, he also denigrated the Negro Leagues as not be professional leagues.
"Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying"
You are so nice. And that's how we get more Biden.
.....and why did he mention Jackie Robinson??? How did that fit in the story??
"Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying to say "the great Negro Leagues pitcher""
I'm not sure about this. It may be what he was supposed to say per the script, but it may be he was trying to say "the great Negro pitcher," before catching himself and heading back to the script. When Biden told the story to the Pope, he called Paige an "African American pitcher" without reference to any sort of league. After saying "Negro Leagues," he then goes on to call the major leagues "the pros," which indicates a lack of understanding of what the Negro Leagues were.
Again, every statement in the story seems to be incorrect: Paige didn't pitch on his 47th birthday, or on his 45th or 46th. He wasn't credited with a win, or even pitch in a winning game, particularly close to his 47th birthday. He wasn't the first 47 year-old to be credited with a win. So, if you know Bill Stern, he's our president right now.
I'd be twenty-something. I know this because while I know my calendar age is much higher than that, the age I "know" about myself is twenty-something. Intellectually I know I'm older. Emotionally I cannot shake the feeling that I'm younger. Intellectually I'm expecting a comeuppance one day, when I try some twenty-something physical feat, and my much older body finally brings reality home to me.
I wasn't going to watch the video, but fine. I did. You're right. He's trying to say Negro League pitcher but stumbled at the wrong moment. This type of fumbling is normal in unscripted speech and would have been ignored if the word left hanging wasn't an outdated racial term that makes Biden look old and out of touch for using.
So I'm going with opportunistic fake scandal.
Most people start to get unclear on their age when they are in their 30's, when how old they are no longer matters.
Also, I think Biden's gaffe is probably a good example of the principle in action. I'm sure that he feels a lot younger than his actual age. Nobody thinks, "I'm getting older, I'm no longer as effortlessly coherent and witty and eloquent as I once was. I should probably take my age into account, and put more effort into planning and rehearsing my speeches." They just assume they've still got it, and barge right ahead like someone 20 or 30 years younger.
"Why hasn't the title "Negro Baseball Leaugue" been airbrushed or actively renamed changed to Black Baseball league?"
It was at least tried out. One of the early oral histories was called "Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues." It didn't take - The Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City wasn't founded and named until 1990. One factor might be that "black baseball" is a wider term, including the Negro Leagues but also independent barnstorming teams, company-sponsored teams, and other entities.
"How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?"
You are of a certain age, it is not contingent on whether you know the number so the answer is, you would be the same age either way.
Scott Adams
@ScottAdamsSays
·
3h
What "...he meant to say" is the new standard for fact-checking Biden.
"How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?"
If you don't know how old you are, you're probably either very young or you're old and senile, in Western societies at least. Or you could have brain damage at any age.
"perhaps because he knows you're not supposed to say "negro" without "leagues" immediately after it"
Isn't "Schwarze" still good?
Does the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have anything to say?
Internally, I feel like I've always felt since I became an adult, an indeterminate spot on the young adult continuum, (20ish to 30ish). More accurately, I don't feel a particular age; I just feel like me, as I've always been.
He may have stumbled but does anyone doubt he thinks of Black people as "Negroes", with all the condescension that implies? I'm guessing Obama saw that clearly, which explains his disdain for Biden.
If you didn't vote for Biden, you ain't a Negro.
"I’ve gotten old enough that when people ask how old I am I have to do the math on what year it is, what year I was born, and whether I have passed my birthday in the current year."
I’ve gotten old enough that when people ask how old I am I have to do the math on what year it is, what year I was born, and whether I have passed.
Also telling is Joe's assumption that the Negro League players weren't pros. We know what he meant, but why shouldn't we attempt the kind of deep dives into the president's psyche that were so common when Trump and other Republicans were in office?
"Why is it that after EVERY public remark of Joe Biden, some people feel the need to explain away what he actually said and tell us what he "really" meant?"
"Blessed are the cheesemakers."
The Wikipedia entry on Ruth Gordon is well worth a read. It makes me want to look up her memoirs.
My mind says 40, my body 55, the calendar 76.
I, for one, admire the speechwriters who are trying so very hard to write text that poor old Joe can maybe, with luck, say clearly. They use things he'll remember from his youth, like Satchel Paige, as a mental crutch for old Joe. I look forward to hearing from Joe about tying an onion to his belt, which was the style at the time.
I'm one of the commenters who spent 2020 repeatedly noting that Joe Biden suffers from dementia. I look forward cringingly to President Harris cackling in a way different from, but just as annoying, as Hillary's borborigmous outbursts. But only because I don't like seeing the elderly abused, as is happening to Joe.
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?"
--------
either you have no concept of 'old' or at an age developing the concept of time passing etc.
so maybe two years of age! how many sleeps is that ?
would Biden knwo how many sleep till next diaper change or icecream treat?
Not only did Biden muff the Great Negro, he also denigrated the Negro Leagues as not be professional leagues.
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could be because the big guy did not get his 10% cut?
"Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying to say "the great Negro Leagues pitcher""
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may I ask if people other than Negro pitched in that Leagues?
"Internally, I feel like I've always felt since I became an adult, an indeterminate spot on the young adult continuum, (20ish to 30ish). More accurately, I don't feel a particular age; I just feel like me, as I've always been."
Well said.
How tall would you be if you didn't measure your height?
I rewatched "Harold and Maude" when you were discussing "Cat Stevens" and enjoyed it again. The problems with Cat Stevens didn't affect my enjoyment of the film at all.
If you don't know how old you are, you're probably either very young or you're old and senile, in Western societies at least. Or you could have brain damage at any age.
Here's my chance, for a brain damage story!
When I was on the Iowa Methodist brain rehab ward, my dr would come in Every afternoon and ask how I was doing?
Then, he'd ask me if I knew what day it was, then he'd ask me the date
After several times of this, I Finally broke down and said to him;
DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THERE'S A CALENDAR, RIGHT BEHIND YOU?
(A calendar, with the past dates crossed off)
And my doctor smiled at me, and replied
Yes, I know, but last week You didnt know
Which was weird, since I had No Recollection of him ever asking me and me Not knowing
Brain damaged people are stupid
How many brain injuries has jo Biden had?
"Yeah, Biden ought to speak more fluently, but he was obviously trying"
Well bless his heart. I, personally, find him very trying. Why the assumption that he id not racist? Seriously. Look at his record in the Senate. Maybe in his dotage he is simply returning to his true state of mind.
"'How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?' I would be 54. Age is a fact that does not depend on a person's knowledge, belief, or preference."
True, but when you are asked the question you don't know how old you are, so you'd have to try to answer as well as you could. If you had to figure it out just from how you *felt*, how would you do that? Age is a fact, but what do you do when you don't know the fact but have to give an answer.
"Kinda like gender."
This is a topic I almost put in the post, but I would do something different with it. What if you had no way to look at your body or to feel it, but only had access to your mind, what would it mean to try to say whether you are male or female (or whatever)? I wonder what people mean when they say that on the inside they know they are male/female. What are they feeling?! You only have direct access to your own mind (as I said in the post), and you only imagine how other people feel inside. So what are you saying if you say you *feel* male or female? Why does there need to be a match between the inner feeling and the outer look? What is the substance of this discussion? I think many people are just withdrawing from the discussion because they don't want to get in trouble and/or they don't want to make anyone feel bad. Others are just making assertions that have little substance other than you are what you look like on the outside (or in your chromosomes or organs). But there's little talk about what it means to feel male/female and why we don't all just accept our feelings without worrying about how much they have to do with our physical attributes.
I've gone through my entire lifetime dealing with the fact that I don't represent the stereotypical female. I preferred boys' toys mostly as a child, was the typical "tomboy" but never had any body dysphoria or ever thought I was a boy. Does there have to be a match between the outer look and the inner feeling? IMO, no. Whatever is going on in my mind is my individuality. How I deal socially is a social construct which I accept.
If I were a child today I would be horribly burdened with the need to pick an identity, male or female, and adhere to the stereotypes of that gender.
That's why I think the discussion on gender has gone backwards and I find the pressure on children to announce their gender a form of child abuse.
"How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?"
Old enough to know better, but too young to resist.
You're not old until the Dr. puts you on beta-blockers, and then you're fooked.
I'm assuming that "how old are you" is one of those basic dementia test questions like "what year is this," or "what's your name". From Ancestry.com, I learned that my grandmother started giving an incorrect younger age from the 1920 census on. But to the best of my recollection in the 50s, she seemed sharp as a tack.
I am willing to cut Biden the same amount of slack for this as the hysterical shitlibs gave to the "guerilla tennis" guy, Mr. "Chink in the Armor," and that ordinary utility worker caught cracking his knuckles while sitting in his truck.
Civility bullshit
@gahrie, +1
Speaking of Satchel and baseball, one of my kids had this Maude type character as an elementary school teacher . Couple moms bought her a cake for her birthday. When asked her age she replied ‘older than dirt and three days older than baseball. I’m sure others have used the phrase but her delivery was Satchelesque.
It’s the hypocrisy-
If Trump had said…
I’m sick of double standards.
I look younger
I feel much older
"I’ve adopted the attitude of the great negro at the time, pitcher of the Negro leagues, who went on to become a great pitcher in the pros — in Major League Baseball — after Jackie Robinson. His name was Satchel Paige."
If I were his editor, this would become:
"I’ve adopted the attitude of the... great pitcher...Satchel Paige."
Honest, are politicians paid by the word or something?
Now that I'm older when asked about my age I always tack on ten more years. That way everyone tells me how good I Look for my age.
Specifics- I’d be 43…
I feel 66- maybe older b/c my sister is 66 & looks amazing, but deals w/a gluten issue+ and if she were asked, she’d say older(maybe.)
I was born in 67, Wince. My friend Spud always says: “the Summer of Love”.
I’ve been milking since I was around 10. My knees feel the age I would think Biden was if I didn’t already know.
L
Gender: I go to a chiropractor that’s into fascia and I tend to hold negative events, thoughts, words- in my body. Not intentionally. Just this Tuesday she said a male friend of hers told her women hold a lot of emotion in their wombs. And, it’s so true, I think.
I’ve always known I was female- I was a tomboy who ran, kicked and jumped way better than the boys. Until I reached about 14- and got a crush on an older boy- and lost my inner muse to the chaos of hormonal change. I think now, almost empty- nested and married to a man close to a decade younger, I’m catching a glimpse of the tomboy- even as I allow my image to fade into its natural state.
Phew! I really missed me.
Did Joe remember to add that Satchel was also bright and articulate and looked real clean?
Quick! Say "Leagues" or there's big trouble! Could everybody just calm down?
Since no Republican (other than a NeverTrump fake one) would ever get a pass on that, no, neither Biden nor any other Democrat is entitled to a pass on such things, either
My body tells me I am 66. But because I drank alcoholically for 22 years from the age of 17 on, those years did not add to my maturity level. Now 27 years sober, 17 plus 27 = 44 so that's where I am in my head and thought patterns (or so a spiritually-based 12-step program and my psychologist tell me). That explains my predilection for "dating" younger women who are closer to my age of mental maturity: at this point, they are, in order of descending appropriateness, 53,37,31 and 24. I enjoy being with younger women because the older women I dated several years ago expected me to jump through hoops to earn the golden (read "grey")fleece and made me travel the Odyssey toward what they considered the promised land of matrimony but bereft of sex. The younger women enjoy my company (and I, theirs), give freely of their time and bodies without over-analyzing it and have NO intention of marrying me (or I, them). So like the great man who played in the Negro Leagues (that's how it is done, Brandon), I don't act my age. But I must confess, without my daily walks of three to six miles, I would run out of breath and stamina in my carnal encounters with my FWBs before I ran out of the necessary ....firmness .... to carry on.
I plan to go to my maker as Nelson Rockefeller did. With a smile on my face -- and like Satchel Paige -- with a high and inside fastball.
I feel 25 most of the time until I go in the bathroom in the morning, look in the mirror, & wonder who the hell let that old man in there.
So in addition to becoming a banned word "negro" has been stripped of its obligatory, dutiful capitalization? Is that because of what happened to liberalism, what happened to racism or what happened to education?
So in addition to becoming a banned word "negro" has been stripped of its obligatory, dutiful capitalization? Is that because of what happened to liberalism, what happened to racism or what happened to education?
"You're only as old as the woman you feel." - - Groucho Marx (presumably said with a leer)
I heard about a previously "uncontacted" tribe whose number system consisted of: one, two, three, many. I feel "many".
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