Pitching Man
Satchel Paige-Defying Time
Craig Davidson is an acclaimed documentarian and baseball historian. Building on a fascination that began in childhood, he continues to dream of baseball and document its central role in American culture. He played, watched or wrote about Little League, aspired to make it in the minors. pitched with the St. Louis Cardinals during Spring Training and played alongside Governor Mario Cuomo during the Democratic National Convention. He has also covered numerous Hall of Fame inductions of his heroes and uses baseball and its history as a way to chronicle the changing pageant of American life.
Davidson's first documentary, the award winning "THERE WAS ALWAYS SUN SHINING SOMEPLACE: Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues", won critical acclaim in the national press. Narrated by James Earl Jones, it became the definitive film about the Negro League experience and was featured at the Smithsonian Institution, National Baseball's Hall of Fame and broadcast nationally as a prime-time feature for the Public Broadcasting System. The film is now used extensively in classrooms throughout America to tell a younger generation the significant contributions of black ballplayers to the cultural life of the nation.
Over the years, one additional story begged to be told.
"It seems everyone had a story about Satchel Paige, arguably the greatest pitcher of his era," noted Davidson. He was complex with Madison Avenue savvy, P.T. Barnum showmanship and wit that could disarm his harshest critics."
For well over a decade Davidson pieced together the extraordinary story of this remarkable athlete. The journey stretches across the back roads of America as Davidson amassed a unique and extensive collection of filmed interviews and archival photographs of Paige's Negro League, major and minor league experience. "PITCHING MAN: Satchel Paige Defying Time" is a compelling and compassionate work of love that will appeal to fans and non-fans alike.
One of Davidson's other documentaries, East Wind - West Wind follows the extraordinary life of Pearl Buck, who was raised in rural China at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1938, Buck was awarded The Nobel Prize for Literature. She was the first for an American woman to be so honored. Best known for her novel The Good Earth, she became one of the world's most popular and influential authors.
Refocus Film's newest documentary Island of Baseball is the untold story of black baseball in Cuba and its role in helping to bring about the end of baseball segregation in the United States. The film explores the special relationship between baseball in Cuba and baseball in the United States and the central role of black Americans and Afro-Cubans in that history.