Don't Look Back: The Satchel Paige

"Don't look back," legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige said. "Something might be gaining on you." That's how Paige went through life. Straight ahead. No regrets. Here it is, hit it. (Hardly anyone could.) As Paige, Louis Gossett, jr. winds up and blows batters away in this biographical winner based on Paige's book Maybe I'll Pitch Forever. In an era when the Major League was "whites only," Paige dominated the talent-rich Negro League with his so-called "trouble ball" and other pitches. And he campaigned for the day when he and other blacks would get their chance at the big show. When Paige's time finally came, he was past his prime. Yet, as always, he made the most of it. Beverly Todd, Cleavon Little and Ossie Davis costar in this fond look at a sports immortal's life and times. Paige was an athlete, a showman, a trailblazer. And in 1971, he was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame.

• action
• thriller