Some fans even began to think that Famous was his real first name.
Satchel Paige, the most well-known Negro Leagues player of all-time, is said to have learned much of his style of play from Donaldson. Although Donaldson was 15 years older than Paige, the former served as a mentor for the latter when the two were barnstorming teammates in the late-1930s. “He showed Satchel the way,” Buck O’Neil said. Gorton reiterated this point.
“There’s these Satchel Paige-isms, right? Outfielders all sit down. Walk the bases loaded, then strike out the next three guys? All these things that Satchel Paige was famed for doing, John Donaldson was doing 30 years before. He had to have that showmanship – he was entertaining people. But he was doing them in very remote places, so they weren’t covered as much. Paige had a road map for his whole thing.”
And there are some mythical, Paige-esque stories specifically about Donaldson. In his first documented game Gorton has for him, he broke his catcher’s hand with a fastball. He would tell his infield to sit down on the ground and strike out batter after batter. During one game in South Dakota, he took one fielder out of the game after each inning ended. His teams carried lights around with them as early as 1912 so they could have night games – years before the Monarchs did the same thing in the late-1920s and MLB’s first night game in 1935.
O’Neil said Donaldson threw a slider 20 years before anybody else did. And he had a changeup, curve and blazing fastball to go along with it. You won’t find many video clips of pitchers from the Negro Leagues era – go ahead and check – but you will find one of Donaldson. Someone felt it was important enough to bring their Kodak video camera – one of the first of its kind – out to a ball field in Minnesota in 1925 to film the legend. Present day scouts have looked at the footage and compared him to a left-handed Bob Gibson.
He could also hit and play the field – he not only pitched for the Monarchs in the team’s early days, but played center and batted cleanup.
Donaldson did have a chance to play against MLB talent during his time with the L.A. White Sox – facing Yankees like Irish Meusel and beating 20-game winners like Pete Schneider. New York Giants manager John McGraw said he was the greatest he’s ever seen – even offering him $10,000 to change his name, move to Cuba and come to the big leagues in order to exploit the loophole on segregation. Donaldson, a man of deep faith, refused.