Conservative pundits love to pounce on President Joe Biden's alleged gaffes, and he gave them fodder Thursday with a speech where he referred to Satchel Paige as the 'great Negro,' before quickly correcting himself to say, 'great pitcher in the Negro leagues.'
The miscue happened while Biden was delivering an address about former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Donald Blinken, who was an Army veteran and father of Secretary of State Antony Blinken. During his speech, Biden digressed into a story about Paige, who played baseball in what was then called the Negro Leagues.
The internet, of course, took notice.
The man Biden is referencing, Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige, was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1906 and went on to become a pitcher in 'Negro League Baseball' and then Major League Baseball in the 1940s. His career spanned five decades and ended with an induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Some on social rushed to smack down Biden's correction, with Shawn Farash tweeting, "If TRUMP used the same terminology that BIDEN used when discussing SATCHEL PAIGE... The MEDIA would be hyperventilating on an intergalactic level." Others came to Biden's defense, including one who tweeted, "Well, to be fair at the time it was called the Negro League so I think he was just talking in historical context, which is the correct thing to do.
Know your history."
Another man who calls himself ADub piled on in Biden's defense, tweeting, "Some of y'all aren't even trying to comprehend what he's saying. Satchel played in the Negro Leagues and MLB, he's trying to say Negro League Pitcher. This isn't the poor = black comment or the black = democrat thing. He's literally complimenting an amazing ball player."
Snopes called the clip the 'latest entry into the Biden Gaffes Hall of Fame,' but noted that it was generating some 'misrepresentation.'
"Ultimately, Biden's fractured anecdote appeared to be aimed at conveying to Blinken that he was only as old as he felt," snopes writes.
"While he did indeed utter the words "I've adopted the attitude of the great Negro," and said them in that order, the context surrounding that sentence fragment does not support the claim or implication that Biden "called" or "referred to" Satchel Paige as "the great Negro."
