Cool Papa Bell

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James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell (May 17, 1903-April 7, 1991) was an American center fielder in Negro league baseball from 1922 to 1946.

He is said to have been one of the fastest men to play the game ever.

Bell's speed is still widely distributed, with stories demonstrating Bell's speed.

In 1974, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He ranked 66th on a list of the top baseball players ever published by The Sporting News in 1999.

Early life

Bell was born in Starkville, Mississippi, on May 17, 1903, to Jonas Bell and Mary Nichols. He appears in the 1910 United States Census as the fourth of seven children living with his widowed mother, Mary Nichols, in Sessums Township, just south of Starkville. Fred Bell, his brother, also played baseball. Bell worked at the Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College, now Mississippi State University, and the school's agricultural experiment station as an adolescent.

He came from St. Louis to live with older brothers and attend high school at the age of 17. Bell spent the majority of his time playing baseball in the neighborhood rather than attending night school as intended. Before the team disbanded in August 1921, he was signed as a knuckleball pitcher with the Compton Hill Cubs, a black semi-pro baseball team. When he worked for a packing company during the week, he played with Compton Hill on Sundays and holidays. Bell, a 1922 baseball player, moved to the East St. Louis Cubs, a semi-pro team that paid him $20 per week to pitch on Sundays.

Later life and legacy

Bell lived in an old red-brick apartment in St. Louis after Bell's playing and managing days were over. He served as a scout for the St. Louis Browns for four years, then served as a security officer and custodian at St. Louis City Hall until 1970. In 1974, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bell's contemporaries regarded him as the best runner on the base paths, according to his Hall of Fame plaque. He was the fifth member of Negro league to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, Buck Leonard, and Buck Leonard were all inducted into the Negro league between 1971 and 1973.

Bell died at Saint Louis University Hospital on March 7, 1991, although his wife Clara had died a few weeks before. James "Cool Papa" Bell Avenue was renamed in his honor by Dickson Street, where he lived. He was also inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Cool Papa Bell is the road leading to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson, of which he is a member. Bell's contributions have been acknowledged by the St. Louis Cardinals by erecting a bronze statue of him outside Busch Stadium, as well as other Hall of Fame St. Louis baseball players, including Stan Musial, Lou Brock, and Bob Gibson.

Bell's appearance appeared in Hanging Curve, Troy Soos' 1999 book about the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. He was also noted in the 1994 film Cobb, in which Ty Cobb, a Tommy Lee Jones character, was chastised for being a smaller actor than Bell. His character appears in the 2009 film The Perfect Game, supporting and assisting the 1957 Little League World Series champion team from Montery, Mexico; Lou Gossett Jr. plays him.

Bell finished 66th on The Sporting News' list of Baseball's Top Players in 1999, one of five players so honored who played all or part of his career in the Negro leagues, and was selected for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

On Paul Simon's 13th studio album Stranger to Stranger, he is the subject of the song "Cool Papa Bell."

On August 10, 2010, he was named in the Washington Nationals Ring of Honor for his "important contribution to the game of baseball in Washington, D.C." as part of the Homestead Grays.

The Cool Papa Bell Plaza and mural at prestigious Dudy Noble Field were unveiled on May 13, 2021.

Gareth Curtiss, a sculptor, had been requested by Starkville to create a statue in his honour. The statue will be on display in Cornerstone Park in Starkville.

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Baseball career

Bell made his Negro National League debut as a pitcher in 1922, joining the St. Louis Stars (NNL). Bell earned his nickname in his first Negro league season, he was referred to as "Cool" after knocking out standout player Oscar Charleston and adding "Papa" to the name because it sounded better. Bell made only occasional appearances in the outfield when he first came first. Bell began working on his defensive abilities and being more active in the outfield by 1924, at the behest of manager Bill Gatewood. According to some, it was Gatewood who first gave Bell his nickname.

Bell made a permanent change to center field and stopped pitching. Bell batted right-handed and threw left-handed before becoming an outfielder. He was aided in his move to the outfield by learning to bat as a switch hitter. He batted left-handed, making his baserunning speed even more difficult for opponents because he was a few steps closer to first base. Bell did not have a strong throwing arm, according to biographer Shaun McCormack. Bell's speed allowed him to play quite shallow in the outfield and still catch balls that were hit behind him.

Pitchers attempted to avoid issuing walks to Bell because he was often able to grab both second base and third base, which would have earned a run on the next play. If he was on first base and the batter had a base hit, Bell could have scored a run. On the occasions where the Negro league players met white teams in exhibitions, Bell referred to the playing style: "We played a different kind of baseball than the white teams." We played a little bit of baseball. We did stuff they didn't expect. In the first inning, we'd bunt and run. We'd been wondering if they'd come in for a bunt right away. We've always crossed them out. We'd run the bases hard and made the fielders yell at everything and make wild throws. We'd make a robbery at home and rattle the pitcher into a balk."

In 1928, 1930, and 1931, Bell led the Stars to league titles. Mule Suttles, a close friend and shortstop, and close friend Willie Wells joined him while playing with the Stars. When the NNL disbanded, he joined the Detroit Wolves of the East-West League. Ex Negro league star Cumberland Posey owned the Wolves, who soared to a first-place victory with a 29–13 record before the league was disbanded. Following the Great Depression, attendance figures had been too low.

Bell hopped from the Kansas City Monarchs and the Mexican winter leagues to the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the reorganized NNL. He spent time in Pittsburgh with Ted Page and Jimmie Crutchfield, who is considered by some to have been the best outfield in the Negro leagues. Bell was one of six players who were later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

Bell was fired by the Crawfords in 1937 when owner Gus Greenlee defaulted on player salaries. Bell, Satchel Paige, and other Crawfords players travelled to the Dominican Republic to compete in a team led by dictator Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo hoped that a baseball championship would raise his reign as well as keep the players under armed control. The club welcomed Puerto Rican star Petrucho Cepeda, father of upcoming Major League Baseball (MLB) Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda outside of Negro league players. They were led by Cuban manager Lázaro Salazar, who was later elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.

The team members became concerned that losing might end their lives, which is why they were playing for Trujillo. Author Mark Ribowsky addresses an association with Crutchfield that was related to him. Following one defeat, the players were reported to have been welcomed by an Army officer who had warned the squad not to lose again, firing gunshots at the hotel courtyard walls. Bell was said to have been crying and begging to leave the Dominican Republic. One of the team's many incidents involving gunshots later denied any incidents involving gunshots, and Ribowsky points out that even Paige's detailed writings never mentioned actual gunshots.

In the long run, the team won the league championship, finishing ahead of two other clubs by four games or less. Many Negro league players, Cuban star Luis Tiant, Sr., and interim Chairman Martin Dihigo were among the second-place teams, as well as future Hall of Fame inductee Martin Dihigo. The third-place team was intentionally made up of mainly Dominican players, with just two Negro leaguers on its roster. Trujillo was angry that a $30,000 squad of Americans had barely beat the competition, so his team was disbanded the next year, and no organized baseball had been played in the Dominican Republic for 12 years.

Bell joined the Mexican League, which was incorporated between 1938 and 1941. He was on staff with the Tampico team for two seasons, with batting averages of.356 and.354. He divided the 1940 season between Torreón and Veracruz. Bell was the first Mexican League player to win the Triple Crown, a.437 batting average, 12 home runs, and 79 runs batted in during that season. He had 167 hits and eight of his home runs were inside-the-park home runs last year. Veracruz captured the pennant that year. In Monterrey, he spent his remaining Mexican League season. His batting average in the Mexican League was.367.

Bell returned to the United States in 1942 to compete for the Chicago American Giants of the Negro American League, a football team. In 1943, he joined the Homestead Grays in the NNL. In Bell's first two seasons, the Grays captured league championships. The Grays lost in the league's World Series for their third straight championship in 1945. The 1946 Grays, who were 43 years old, reached.396. Bell was a player-manager for Negro farm teams until 1950. He had a.391 batting average in exhibitions against MLB players, and he finished his Negro league career with a.361 batting average. Bell, a part-time scout for the St. Louis Browns from 1951 to 1954, when the team moved to Baltimore, was a part-time scout for the team.

Though statistics were not meticulously maintained for the majority of Bell's career, it's clear that he was regarded as one of the top players in Negro league baseball. "Maybe I'll Pitch Forever" is a word that rhymes with Cool Papa, "If schools had known Cool Papa was around and if reading was up to date, he'd have been the best track man you've ever seen," Paige wrote in his autobiography. Bell's speed is also widely circulated; some aren't immediately believable, while others are assumed to be accurate. Paige liked to tell a tale from one hotel where he and Bell stayed. Due to poor wiring, there was a brief delay between turning the light switch off and the lights actually going off, but Bell was able to jump into bed in the interim. Paige liked to say that Bell was so fast he could turn off the light and be under the covers before the room got dark. Bell said he was hit by the ball when he slid into second base, according to legend.

Bell was described as being so quick in Ken Burns' Baseball that he once scored from first on a sacrifice bunt. Bell is said to have broken for second on a bunt and run with Paige at the plate in an exhibition game against white all-stars. Bell was almost to second and seeing the third baseman fall back into home to field the bunt, rounded the bag by the time the ball reached Paige. Roy Partee of the Boston Red Sox skipped to third to cover the bag and a return throw from first. Bell was rounded third and brushed by him on the way home; the St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher Murry Dickson was not aware of that the catcher was not injured at home; and Bell scored standing up. On a soggy field in Chicago, Bell claimed to have done it in as few as 12 seconds in dry weather.

Bell's crewmate Ted Page talked about the healthy off-the-field life that he lived. Bell was "a much better man off the field than he was on it," he said. He was sincere. He was generous. He had a clean liver. In fact, I've never seen him smoke, drink a bottle, or even say one cuss word in all of his years of being around him.

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