What do you say when a friend brags a that, as a youth, he got not only an autograph from Willie Mays but one of his broken bats?

Well, I said, I had an interview in the summer of 1975 with legendary pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Chosen for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 as the first electee of the Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues. Oldest player to make his debut in the big leagues at age 42. Had three scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox at age 59.

He also scorched Mays the second time he faced him at the plate.

According to his biography, Mays was 17 in 1948 when Paige first played in the major leagues for the Cleveland Indians. He doubled off Paige in his first at-bat. As Mays approached the on-deck circle for his second at-bat, Satch walked from the mound halfway to home plate and told him, “Little boy … I’m going to throw you three fastballs and you’re going to sit down.”

Mays swung hard and missed at the first two fast balls. On the third pitch, Mays said, he threw the ball and, with the ball still in the air, Paige said, “Go sit down.” Mays went down on strikes and did as he was told.

Paige, who’d enjoyed a stellar career in the old Negro Baseball Leagues, played six years in Major League Baseball. He got to pitch in relief in the 1948 World Series with Cleveland. Armed with a 6-1 record with the Indians, who signed him to a contract that July, he went to the mound with one out in the seventh for relief duty against the Boston Braves. He got Warren Spahn to fly out and induced an inning-ending ground-out from Tommy Holmes.

I caught up with him in ’75 when he was in Lafayette for an old-timers contest that was a promotion for a game involving the Class AA Texas League Lafayette Drillers. Paige had been working for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class AAA Tulsa Oilers. I recall he said he wasn’t particularly impressed with the level of talent in the majors at the time, except for Hank Aaron and Willie Stargell. He talked of earlier legends Gehrig, Ruth, Williams and DiMaggio as being sure bets at any given time to hit one out of the park. Ted Williams, he said, was the toughest batter he (and most pitchers of Williams’ era) ever faced. “Ain’t no maybe so about it.”

That was a repeated line from time to time that day. This is the same guy known for homespun maxims such as, “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you,” or “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

There has been a bit of exaggeration or embellishment in stories of Paige over the years, including one told by the late baseball player, coach and inimitable storyteller Buck O’Neil in Ken Burns’ Baseball series on PBS of the legendary matchup between Paige and legendary Negro League slugger Josh Gibson in the 1942 Negro League World Series.

Leonard spun a mythic tale of how, in the second game of the Series, Paige, pitching for the Kansas City Monarchs, deliberately walked three batters to face Gibson, playing for the Homestead Grays, with the game on the line in the bottom of the seventh inning. He supposedly had someone bring him a “concoction” to drink, then pronounced, “Now, I’m ready.” Then he tells Gibson what he’s going to throw before he does it. And Gibson supposedly didn’t swing at a pitch.

Contemporaneous news stories, however, reported nothing of a “concoction,” deliberately loading the bases or three straight strikes without a swing. Instead, Paige prevailed, with his team leading 2-0, as Gibson fouled off the first two pitches and then swung and missed at the third pitch to end the inning. Paige and the Monarchs held on to win that game and the Series.

Paige, believe it or not, pitched in the majors at age 59 in 1965 for the Kansas City Athletics. Team owner Charles O. Finley signed him in September as a publicity stunt for a hapless team on the way to 103 losses. Paige hadn’t pitched since 1953, and he said he needed three or four days “to really sharpen up.” He agreed to pitch three innings against the Boston Red Sox for $3,500.

Paige, summoned for relief from his rocking chair in the bullpen, pitched three scoreless innings and gave up just one hit.

Talk about a remarkable Paige of history.