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James Thomas Bell
Born: May 17, 1903, Starkville, Mississippi
Died: March 7, 1991, St. Louis, Missouri
Cool Papa Bell, fabled Negro League outfielder, is widely considered the fastest man to ever play professional baseball. James Thomas Bell was likely born on May 17, 1901, near Starkville, Mississippi, a farming community of 2,700 on the outskirts of the Mississippi blues country. (In fact, Bells birth and that of the Delta Blues can be traced to the same time: It was in 1901 that white anthropologists first discovered the music in rural Mississippi.) His family, which included two sisters and five brothers, lived on a farm about two miles from Starkville, where James father, Jonas Bell, sharecropped cotton and corn. His mother, Mary Nichols Bell (who was three-eighths Native American), did odd jobs, including taking in laundry. James attended Starkvilles one-room elementary school for blacks, but left school in the seventh grade.
In 1920 Bell joined the many African Americans escaping the impoverished South for urban centers of the Midwest, bringing their music and their baseball with them. Bell moved to St. Louis because, he later said, you could just live better and make more money. Four of his older brothers already lived in St. Louis, where they played for a black semipro team, the Compton Hill Cubs, on Sundays and holidays. Soon the wiry (511, 145 lbs.) James was playing for the team too as a knuckleball pitcher while also earning $21.20 per week laboring at the Independent Packing Company and attending high school at night. The team disbanded in August 1921, and in 1922 Bell joined another semipro team, the East St. Louis Cubs, making $20 per week for pitching on Sundays. On 3 May 1922 he signed with the St. Louis Stars, a major power in the Negro National League, for $90 per month. He reportedly earned his famous nickname as a rookie with the Stars, when he calmly struck out the feared slugger Oscar Charleston in a crucial situation. The players began calling him Cool, which manager Bill Gatewood later modified to Cool Papa. Bell pitched and played the outfield occasionally until 1924, when, at Gatewoods urging, he made two changes that would be crucial to his later success: He began playing center field exclusively, and he learned to switch hit. (Although a left-handed thrower, Bell had always batted right-handed.) Bell eventually became a defensive star in center field, known for playing unusually shallow because his speed enabled him to reach most balls hit over his head.
Soon after switching positions, Bells baserunning brought him renown as the fastest player in baseball. Because Negro League teams neither played traditional schedules nor kept accurate statistics, the exploits of their players survive mostly in anecdotal tales of dubious accuracy. The stories about Bells blazing speed are among the most colorful. He was said to have once been hit by his own batted ball as he slid into second base. Another tale, Satchel Paiges favorite, said Bell was so fast he could shut out the lights and get into bed before the room got dark. Bell himself claimed to have stolen 175 bases in 200 games during the 1933 season. However, despite such unlikely exaggerations, there is ample evidence to document Bells disruptiveness on the basepaths. He won the 1934 East-West all-star game when he drew a leadoff walk in the eighth inning, then stole second and scored on a weak hit for the only run in a 1-0 victory. Many years later, on October 24, 1948, the 45-year-old Bell scored from first base on a sacrifice bunt in an exhibition game against a major league all-star team.
Bell played 10 seasons with the Stars, which by the late 1920s had become the premier franchise in the Negro National League. Led by the trio of Bell, shortstop Willie Wells (Bells closest friend), and first baseman Mule Suttles, St. Louis won championships in 1929 and 1930. The Stars disbanded in 1931 along with the Negro National League, however, and Bell spent the rest of his career moving from team to team in the often financially unstable Negro Leagues. From 1933-38 he played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, a conglomeration of superstars often considered to be the greatest black team ever. In addition to Bell, the teams lineup included Josh Gibson at catcher, playing manager Charleston at first base, Judy Johnson at third base, and pitcher Satchel Paige. In 1943 Bell joined the Homestead Grays, whom he helped to three consecutive championships.
On 8 September 1928, Bell married Clara Belle Thompson. They honeymooned in Cuba, where Bell had signed a contract to play winter ball. On 3 January 1929 he became the first player in Cuban League history to hit three jonrones (home runs) in one game. He led the league in both homers and stolen bases that season, the first of four winters he spent in Cuba. Latin America was a popular destination for many African-American players, who were drawn to the Caribbean leagues by warm weather, high salaries, and a relative lack of racism. (Bell played so often in Latin America that he eventually became fluent in Spanish.) In 1937 Bell and other Negro League stars were lured to the Dominican Republic by exorbitant salary offers from dictator Rafael Trujillo, who used his personal baseball team as a publicity tool to preserve his political power. Bell also played in the Mexican League from 1938-41, where he earned his highest salary: $450 per month.
In 1948 Bell became playing manager of a Kansas City Monarchs farm team, where his charges included a young Ernie Banks. In 1951, when Bell was 50 years old, the St. Louis Browns offered him a major league contract, but Bell declined, saying he was too old to play his best. He retired from baseball later that year, after playing for 29 summers and 21 winters.
Talented as he was, baseball did not make Bell rich. Left without a pension, he immediately found work as a custodian at City Hall in St. Louis. He was eventually promoted to night watchman there, a job he held until his retirement in April 1973. On 12 August 1974, Bell received baseballs highest honor when he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He was the fifth Negro League star to be elected to the Hall, where his Stars uniform and his sunglasses remain on permanent display. In the ensuing years Bell lived on Social Security, his small pension from the city of St. Louis, and a quiet stipend from the baseball Commissioners office. He and Clara continued to reside in a modest home on St. Louis Dickson Avenue, which was renamed James Cool Papa Bell Avenue in 1987.
On 20 January 1991 Clara Bell died after 62 years of marriage. A month later Bell himself was hospitalized after a heart attack, and he died in St. Louis on 7 March 1991. He was survived by his only daughter, Connie Bell Brooks, and was buried at St. Peters Cemetery in St. Louis. His will specified that he have twelve pallbearers: six black and six white.
Bell impressed most who met him as a gentle, dignified, and soft-spoken man, and he left behind a legacy of unparalleled achievement on the baseball diamond. Although the lack of statistics makes it likely that the degree of Bells greatness will always be debated, he is clearly one of the most important figures to emerge from baseballs Negro Leagues. The anecdotal stories that contributed so much to Bells legend are an essential part of African American oral tradition, but they are also a grim reminder that segregation caused a talent so great to be appreciated by so few. So many people say I was born too early, Bell said shortly before his death. But thats not true. They opened the doors too late.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
No full-length biography of Bell exists, and factual information about him is hard to come by. By far the best source is the collection of research files maintained by the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, which contain newspaper articles, correspondence, interviews, and the scrapbook Bell kept of his playing career. An extensive interview of Bell was done by the Oral History Program of the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1971. In addition, two essential works of oral history contain chapters on him: John Holways Voices From the Great Black Baseball Leagues and Donald Honigs Baseball When the Grass Was Real (both 1975). The Negro Leagues Book (1994), edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, is the definitive source for information on the black teams rosters and statistics.
JAMES THOMAS BELL
"COOL PAPA"
NEGRO LEAGUES 1922-1950
COMBINED SPEED, DARING AND BATTING
SKILL TO RANK AMONG BEST PLAYERS
IN NEGRO LEAGUES. CONTEMPORARIES
RATED HIM FASTEST MAN ON BASE
PATHS. HIT OVER .300 REGULARLY,
TOPPING .400 ON OCCASION. PLAYED
29 SUMMERS AND 21 WINTERS
OF PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL.
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