Cool Papa Bell

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

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

Bell was born on May 17, 1903, in Starkville, Mississippi, to Jonas Bell and Mary Nichols.

The 1910 U.S. Census shows him as the fourth of seven children living with his widowed mother, Mary Nichols, in Sessums Township, just outside Starkville.

His brother Fred Bell also played baseball.

As a teenager, Bell worked at the creamery at Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College, now Mississippi State University, and at the school's agricultural experiment station.

At the age of 17, he moved to St. Louis to live with older brothers and attend high school.

However, rather than attending night school as planned, Bell spent most of his time playing baseball in the neighborhood.

He signed as a knuckleball pitcher with the Compton Hill Cubs, a black semi-pro baseball team, until the team broke up in August 1921.

He played with Compton Hill on Sundays and holidays while he worked for a packing company during the week.

For 1922, Bell moved to the East St. Louis Cubs, a semi-pro team that paid him $20 weekly to pitch on Sundays.

Bell joined the St. Louis Stars of the Negro National League (NNL) as a pitcher in 1922.

Bell earned his nickname in his first Negro league season; he was referred to as "Cool" after striking out standout player Oscar Charleston and added "Papa" to the nickname because it sounded better.

At first, Bell made only occasional appearances in the outfield.

By 1924, at the urging of manager Bill Gatewood, Bell began working on his defensive skills and appearing more in the outfield.

And some sources say that it was Gatewood who first gave Bell his nickname.

Bell ultimately made a permanent move to center field and stopped pitching.

Before becoming an outfielder, Bell batted right-handed and threw left-handed.

His transition to the outfield was aided by learning to bat as a switch hitter.

When he batted left-handed, his baserunning speed was even more trouble for opponents because he was a couple of steps closer to first base.

Biographer Shaun McCormack points out that Bell did not have a strong throwing arm.

However, Bell's speed allowed him to play very shallow in the outfield and to still catch balls that were hit behind him.

Pitchers tried to avoid issuing walks to Bell, because he was often able to steal both second base and third base, scoring a run on the next play.

Bell could also sometimes score a run if he was on first base and the batter got a base hit.

Bell described the style of play on the occasions when the Negro league players faced 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 make the fielders throw too quick and make wild throws. We'd fake a steal home and rattle the pitcher into a balk."

Bell led the Stars to league titles in 1928, 1930, and 1931.

While with the Stars, he played alongside close friend and shortstop Willie Wells and first baseman Mule Suttles.

He moved to the Detroit Wolves of the East-West League when the NNL disbanded.

The Wolves were owned by former Negro league star Cumberland Posey and they jumped to a first-place lead with a 29–13 win–loss record before the league disbanded.

Attendance figures had remained too low in the wake of the Great Depression.

Bell bounced to the Kansas City Monarchs and the Mexican winter leagues until finding a home with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the reorganized NNL.

In Pittsburgh, he played with Ted Page and Jimmie Crutchfield to form what is considered by many to have been the best outfield in the Negro leagues.

On the 1936 Crawfords team, Bell was one of six players who were subsequently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bell left the Crawfords in 1937 when owner Gus Greenlee defaulted on player salaries.

Bell, Satchel Paige and other Crawfords players went to the Dominican Republic to play on a team assembled by dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Trujillo felt that a baseball championship would strengthen his ruling power and he kept the players under armed supervision.

Outside of Negro league players, the club featured Puerto Rican star Petrucho Cepeda, father of future Major League Baseball (MLB) Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.

They were led by Cuban manager Lázaro Salazar, who was later elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.

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