Cool Papa Bell

Pro team(s)

St. Louis Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Homestead Grays (Negro Leagues)

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Baseball Hall of Fame

James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell was born on May 17, 1903, in Starkville, Mississippi, one of seven children in a farming family. He began his professional baseball career in 1922 with the St. Louis Stars of the Negro National League — a left-handed switch hitter who became a center fielder of incomparable range and speed. Over a professional career that spanned more than three decades in the Negro Leagues, Bell became one of the most celebrated and beloved figures in the history of American baseball, and his legend rests on a single overwhelming quality: he was faster than anyone who ever played the game. The stories are almost mythological in their scale. Satchel Paige famously claimed that Bell was so fast he could turn off the light switch and be in bed before the room went dark. Witnesses swore he could circle the bases in 12 seconds. He was said to score from second base on a bunt. In an era when Black players were barred from Major League Baseball, Bell played in the Negro Leagues, in the Caribbean, in Mexico, and in barnstorming games against white major leaguers — and he was consistently regarded by everyone who played with or against him as the fastest man on a baseball diamond anyone had ever seen. He batted consistently over .350 throughout his peak years, was a superb outfielder, and combined every tool of the game with that supernatural speed. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974 by the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues. Born in Starkville, Mississippi.