cool papa bell
May 17, 1903 – March 7, 1991
cool papa bell
James 'Cool Papa' Bell spent 24 years in the Negro Leagues, and by some accounts is considered to have been one of the fastest men to have ever played the game of baseball. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1973.
James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell was a professional American baseball players and Hall of Fame centerfielder in the Negro Leagues, and Major League Baseball playing from 1922 to 1946.
He is considered to have been one of the fastest men to ever have play the game of baseball.
Stories demonstrating Cool Papa Bell's speed are still widely circulated.
Bell was officially honored by the Major Leagues Baseball’s Hall of Fame when he was inducted with the class of 1974.
He ranked 66th on a list of the all time greatest baseball players published by The Sporting News in 1999.
James Cool Papa Bell began his career with the St. Louis Stars of the Negro National League I (NNLI) as a pitcher in 1922.
He earned his nickname in his first season in the Negro Leagues, gaining the moniker "Cool" after striking out Negro Leagues legend and MLB Hall of Fame player Oscar Charleston, subsequently adding "Papa" to the nickname because it sounded cooler. [1]
At the beginning of Bell’s career he made only occasional appearances in the outfield.
However, by 1924, managers, began urging Bell to begin working more on his defensive skills so that he could appear at more defensive positions in the outfield.
Some sources have said that it was Bill Gatewood who first gave Cool Papa Bell his nickname. [2]
However he ended up getting his nickname i think many baseball historians would agree with me in saying that he is at least tied for first all time greatest nickname.
At any rate, pitchers soon caught on to Bell’s tremendous speed on the bases, therefore they tried desperately to avoid issuing walks to him.
What often started as a walk often and frequently turned into a triple, allowing him to steal both second base and third base at will according to reports of Bell's speed.
Cool Papa Bell could also sometimes score a run from first base on a mere base hit.
Bell's description of his style of play facing white teams in exhibitions:
"We played a different kind of baseball than the white teams. We played tricky baseball. We did things they didn't expect. We'd bunt and run in the first inning. Then when they would come in for a bunt we'd hit away. We always crossed them up. We'd run the bases hard and then make the fielders throw too quick and make wild throws. We'd fake a steal home and rattle the pitcher into a balk." [3]
Bell left the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1937 when owner Gus Greenlee defaulted on his payroll obligations.
As a vaulted figure in his community Gus Greenlee owned and operated several businesses, negro leagues teams, and even served as a league official at the creation of two leagues, the Negro National League II and the United States League.
Gus Greenlee was an experienced businessman, operating several businesses simultaneously, some legal - and some not so legal. Regardless, he was familiar with running a successful enterprise.
So something was systemically wrong with the economics of the league at that time for a man like Greenlee to miss payroll for his players.
This coincided with an exodus from the Negro Leagues in the United States, with some of its greatest talent, such as Cool Papa, Satchel Paige and others, fleeing to the Dominican Republic to play on a team assembled by socialist dictator Rafael Trujillo.
There were some drawbacks to playing oversees, but not only was the pay consistent, Trujillo strongly felt that a baseball championship would strengthen his power, so he made sure he kept the players under armed supervision. [4]
Outside of the Negro Leagues ball players, the club featured Puerto Rican star Petrucho Cepeda, father of future Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player, Orlando Cepeda.
The team was led by Cuban manager Lázaro Salazar, who was later elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.
While playing for Trujillo, some members of the team began to fear for their lives. Slowly, the allure of the money began to wear off and many players began to feel homesick for the United States.
As author Mark Ribowsky described in an experience with the team that was relayed to him by Crutchfield;
After one loss, the players were said to have been accosted at their hotel by an Army sergeant who warned the team not to lose again, firing gunshots at the walls of the hotel courtyard. Bell was said to have been terrified by the threats on his life and wanted to flee the Dominican Republic.
One of the Cuban players on the team later denied any incidents involving gunfire, and Ribowsky points out that even in Satchel Paige's detailed writings gunfire was never mentioned. [5]
Ultimately, the team won the Cuban League Championship, finishing ahead of two other clubs by four games.
The second place team also featured several Negro League regulars, including Cuban star Luis Tiant, Sr., and future Hall of Fame Martin Dihigo.
The third-place team was composed of mainly Dominican Nationals.
Trujillo later became disillusioned that his team of $30,000 professional American baseball players had barely beaten his incumbent talent. Trujilo expressed his ultimate dissatisfaction with a simple solution. The league was officially disbanded the next season.
After his new declaration, there was no official organized baseball league in the Dominican Republic for the next twelve years.
As for Cool Papa Bell, he journeyed to the Mexican League, which was integrated for the first time in 1938, and fully integrated 1941.
He spent his first two seasons with the team in Tampico, maintaining a batting average of .356 and .354. Bell then split the 1940 season between two Mexican League franchises; Torreón and Veracruz. [6]
In that season, Bell became the first Mexican League player to ever win the Triple Crown, with Cool Papa leading the league in batting average (.437) batting average, home runs (12) and runs batted in (79).
He finished that year with 167 hits, with 8 of those hits being inside-the-park home runs.
With Veracruz winning the pennant that year, Cool Papa spent his last Mexican League season in Monterrey.
For his career in the Mexican League, Cool Papa Bell maintained an overall career batting average of .367.
In 1942, Bell came back to play baseball in the United States.
He signed on with Rube Foster's Chicago American Giants of the Negro National League I and later played for the Homestead Grays in the Negro National League II in 1943.
While playing for Cum Posey's Homestead Grays, Cool Papa Bell was inserted into a lineup that already included Josh Gibson, and Buck Leonard, and although Bell was aging, Homestead was more than able to maintain their reputation as a power house franchise in the NNLII.
To the surprise of nobody following Negro Leagues baseball at that time, Homestead would go on to dominate, winning the league championship consecutively in Bell's first two seasons with the team.
They began their attempt at a third consecutive title in 1945 with Cool Papa Bell at the age of 42.
That season Homestead lost the 1946 National Negro League World Series. Failing their bid to win a third consecutive title.
Now at 43-years-old, Bell had a career batting average of .396 in his total time playing for the Homestead Grays.
After retiring as a player, Cool Papa Bell became a player-manager for several Negro Leagues barnstorming farm teams, a profession he continued until the mid 1950's.
He would finish his Negro Leagues career with a .341 batting average; .391 in exhibitions games against white segregated Major League Baseball players.
Papa Bell also worked as a part-time scout for the St. Louis Browns from 1951 to 1954, when the team moved to Baltimore. [7]
Although statistics were not meticulously maintained throughout the history of the Negro Leagues, and for the majority of Bell's career, it’s still clear that he was one of the greatest players in the history of professional baseball.
As starting pitcher Satchel Paige noted in his autobiography, Maybe I'll Pitch Forever; "If schools had known Cool Papa was around and if Cool Papa had known reading real good, he'd have made the best track man you ever saw." [8]
Anecdotes about Bell's speed are still widely circulated; some are not easily believable, while others are thought to be certain truth.
Paige enjoyed refering to a story from an experience he had with Cool Papa at a hotel in which the two stayed.
There was a short delay during a night game, and a significant cost to the league by flipping the light stanchions on/off.
There was also a short delay in the lights actually going on/off due to what some would call shoddy wiring.
This provided Cool Papa Bell enough time to take a brief nap.
Leaving out the explanatory details, Paige liked to say that Bell was so fast that he could turn off the lights and be under the covers in bed before the room got dark.
Legend also tells of Papa Bell hitting a ball up the middle of the field, then being struck by the ball as he slid into second base. [9]
In Ken Burn's Documentary Baseball, James Cool Papa Bell is described as being so fast that he once scored from first base on a sacrifice bunt.
In an exhibition game against all white major league all-stars, Papa is said to have made a break for second base on a bunt, scoring an RBI for Satchel Paige bunting at the plate.
In the time it took for the ball to reach home, Bell was already at second, and seeing the third baseman had broken towards home to field the bunt, Cool Papa stole third base as well.
The commotion prompted Catcher, Roy Partee of the Boston Red Sox to run ran to third base in an attempt to cover the bag on an anticipated return throw from first.
Much to his surprise, Cool Papa Bell was already rounding third by that time, brushing by him on the way to home.
Pitcher Murry Dickson of the St. Louis Cardinals had not thought to cover home on the play and with the catcher moving up the line at third to cover the bag, Bell to score standing. [10]
On one occasion, Cool Papa Bell was officially timed rounding all four bases, and he consistently maintained a time in the range of 13.1 seconds, even on a soggy field in Chicago, even after multiple attempts; he claimed that he would have done it in 12 seconds in dry conditions. [11]
Long time teammate Ted Page commented on the ‘clean’ and sober lifestyle Cool Papa Bell lived off the field.
Page said that Bell was "an even better man off the field than he was on it. He was honest. He was kind. He had a clean liver. In fact, in all of the years I've known him, I've never seen him smoke, take a drink or even say so much as one cuss word." [12]
After Bell's playing and managing days had come to an end, James Cool Papa Bell lived in an old red-brick apartment building in St. Louis, later took up work as a scout for the St. Louis Browns Baseball team for a four year term, and then serving as a security officer and custodian at St. Louis City Hall until 1970. [14]
He was inducted four years later into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.
on his Hall of Fame plaque it highlights to Bell's contemporaries that he was regarded as the fastest runner on the base paths in Negro Leagues history.
Cool Papa Bell is apart of the 1974 class of Hall of Famers, claiming his spot as one of the first five black professional Negro League baseball players to be inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin and Buck Leonard were inducted before Cool Papa Bell, between 1971 and 1973.
At the end of what was a well lived life, Cool Papa Bell suffered a heart attack and passed away at Saint Louis University Hospital on March 7, 1991; his wife Clara had died a few weeks earlier. [15]
In his honor, Dickson Street, on which he lived, was renamed James "Cool Papa" Bell Avenue.
"Cool Papa Bell Drive" is the name of the road leading to the Mississippi State's Sport's Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson, of which he is a member.
Additionally, Cool Papa Bell was also inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. [16]
The St. Louis Cardinals have honored Cool Papa Bell's contributions to the game of baseball, erecting a bronze statue of him that sits outside Busch Stadium along with other Hall of Fame St. Louis baseball stars, Stan Musial, Lou Brock and Bob Gibson.
players
Oscar Charelston
Oscar Charelston
Oscar Charelston
Oscar Charleston played and managed in the Negro Leagues as an outfielder, first baseman and pitcher. Charleston would later become manager of the Indianapolis Clowns.
Cool Papa Bell
Oscar Charelston
Oscar Charelston
Cool Papa Bell played centerfield in the Negro Leagues from 1922 to 1946. played for the powerhouse Kansas City. Monarchs, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Homestead Grays.
Buck Leonard
Oscar Charelston
Satchel Paige
Buck Leonard, along side Josh Gibson formed the best three-four, hitting tandem in the History of the Negro Leagues, leading the Homestead Grays to dominance.
Satchel Paige
Cumberland Posey
Satchel Paige
Satchel Paige began his 20 year career in the Negro Leagues pitching for the Chattanooga Lookouts. He would later make his MLB debut at age 42 for the Cleveland Indians.
Cumberland Posey
Cumberland Posey
Cumberland Posey
Cum Posey was a veteran Negro Leagues team owner, player, and league executive. He is the founding member of two leagues, and a Hall of Fame Basketball player.
Jackie Robinson
Cumberland Posey
Cumberland Posey
Jackie Robinson is the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He broke baseball's color barrier in 1945, by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella played one season in the Negro Leagues, signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers just one season after Jackie Robinson’s debut in Major League Baseball.
Gus Greenlee
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella
Gus Greenlee was a driving force behind the organization of the Negro National League I. During his time involved with Negro Leagues he owned several profitable side businesses.
Henry AAron
Roy Campanella
Candy Jim Taylor
Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in home runs with 755, few know Aaron began his baseball career in the Negro Leagues as a shortstop for the Indianapolis Clowns.
Candy Jim Taylor
Cristóbal Torriente
Candy Jim Taylor
Candy Jim Taylor was a professional third baseman, manager, and brother of four professional playing Negro Leaguers. His career in baseball spanned over 40 years.
Cristóbal Torriente
Cristóbal Torriente
Cristóbal Torriente
Cristóbal Torriente, often called the Babe Ruth of Cuba, played as an outfielder in the Negro Leagues from 1912-1932. He was most known for his incredible power to all fields.
Rube Foster
Cristóbal Torriente
Cristóbal Torriente
Considered one of the best pitchers of the early 1900s, and perhaps the most influential figure in Negro League history, Rube Foster founded the NNLI and managed the Chicago American Giants.
Larry Doby
Josh Gibson
Josh Gibson
Larry Doby was the second African-American baseball player to break baseball's color barrier and the first black player to play in the American League.
Josh Gibson
Josh Gibson
Josh Gibson
Even from the catcher position, Josh Gibson's display of power during his career for the Homestead Grays is legendary. However, Gibson would never play Major League Baseball.
Sol White
Josh Gibson
Ben Taylor
King Solomon "Sol" White played baseball professionally as an infielder, manager and league executive. White is considered to be one of the pioneers of the Negro Leagues.
Ben Taylor
Ben Taylor
Ben Taylor
Born in July 1888, Ben Taylor was the youngest of 4 professional Negro Leaguers, including Candy Jim Taylor, C.I. Taylor, and Johnny Steel Arm Taylor.
Biz Mackey
Ben Taylor
Biz Mackey
Biz Mackey was regarded as one of the Negro Leagues premier offensive and defensive catchers, playing across several leagues from late 1920s and early 1930s.
Nat Strong
Ben Taylor
Biz Mackey
Nathaniel Strong was a Negro Leagues sports executive, businessman, team owner and founding member of the Negro National League I,
Monte Irvin
Turkey Stearnes
Turkey Stearnes
Monte Irvin flourished as one of the early African-American players in MLB, making 2 World Series appearances for the New York Giants, playing along side Willie Mays.
Turkey Stearnes
Turkey Stearnes
Turkey Stearnes
Norman Turkey Stearnes played professionally in the Negro Leagues, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.
Willie Mays
Turkey Stearnes
Steel Arm Taylor
A can’t miss five-tool player, Mays began his professional baseball career with the Black Barons, spending the rest of his career playing MLB for the Giants and Mets.
Steel Arm Taylor
Steel Arm Taylor
Steel Arm Taylor
John Boyce Taylor was the second-oldest of 4 baseball-playing brothers, the others being Charles, Ben and James. For the 1899-1900 seasons, Taylor won 90% of his games starting pitcher for the Giants.
Buck O'Neil
Steel Arm Taylor
Martín Dihigo
Buck O’Neil joined the Memphis Red Sox for their inaugural season in the newly formed Negro American League. However, his contract was purchased by the Kansas City Monarchs the next season.
