.jpeg)
The style of listening to use when people are sharing stories that hold strong emotion for them. The goal of this listening style is to put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand how they feel. It is not about being right or wrong, it is about validating the feeling they are experiencing.
PRACTICING EMPATHETIC LISTENING
Leroy “Satchel” Paige was born July 7, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama.
What emotions does it bring up in you when you consider how Satchel Paige may have felt as he went through the integration of Major League Baseball during the time of Jim Crow Laws in the South and before the Civil Rights Act of 1968? How can your empathy with his challenge and strength help you progress inclusion in today’s workplace and sports arenas?
From 1927 to 1948 Paige served as the baseball equivalent of a hired gun: He pitched for any team in the United States or abroad that could afford him. He was the highest paid pitcher of his time, and he wowed crowds with the speed of his fastball.
Prior to integration in Major League Baseball in 1947, Paige was a pitcher for several teams in American Negro League baseball. From 1939 to 1942, the Kansas City Monarchs paid up for his services and were justly rewarded: Paige led the team to four consecutive Negro American League pennants from 1939 to 1942. In the 1942 Negro League World Series, Satchel won three games in a four-game sweep of the Homestead Grays, led by famed slugger Josh Gibson.
Leroy “Satchel” Paige holds the record for being the oldest Major League Baseball player ever. On September 25, 1965, Paige’s three innings for the Kansas City Athletics made him, at 59 years, 2 months and 18 days, the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues. Before the game, Paige sat in the bullpen in a rocking chair while a nurse rubbed liniment into his pitching arm for the entire crowd to see. Any doubts about Paige’s ability were put to rest when he set down each of the Red Sox batters he faced except for Carl Yastremski, who hit a double. Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.
Source: Society for American Baseball Research