The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second class citizen to a second class immortal.

Paige’s line is a bitterly comic summary of how fame can coexist with structural inequality. Baseball—especially after the color line began to break—could elevate a Black athlete into legend, but it could not fully erase the everyday realities of segregation, exclusion, and diminished status. By calling himself a “second class immortal,” Paige suggests that even the highest form of recognition available to him is still qualified by race: he may be celebrated, but not on equal terms, and often only after his prime or on others’ conditions. The quote captures the paradox of American hero-making: the nation can canonize Black excellence while continuing to treat Black people as second-class citizens.