James Thomas"Cool Papa" Bell

Hall Of Fame Induction:  1974

He was born James Nichols to Mary Nichols and Jonas Bell.  In 1920, he moved to St. Louis with his five brothers and two sisters and adopted his father’s name.  In August, he went to work for the Independent (later Swift) Packing Company at a weekly wage of $21.20-5 cents an hour.  After hours, he joined the all-black semi-pro Compton Hill cubs in the city league, before going across the river to play for the East St. Louis Cubs.

When the Cubs played the St. Louis Stars of the Negro National League (NNL) in an exhibition game in 1922, Bell’s baseball career received a kick-start.  The Stars signed him for $90.00 a month as a left-handed pitcher with a wicked curve and a fade-away knuckler.  After he beat the Chicago American Giants’ Jimmy Lyons in a match race to claim the league’s fastest man title, the Stars assigned Bell to patrol centerfield.  In 1924, the switch-hitting Bell became the starting centerfielder for the Stars.  He stayed with them until 1931, when the Great Depression killed off the NNL.  In ten years with the Stars, he led them to league titles in 1928, 1930 and 1931.

In 1932, Bell joined the talented-rich Detroit Wolves of the East-West League, which collapsed in mid-season.  When the Wolves folded, he joined the Kansas City Monarchs for the remainder of the season.  Dissatisfied with playing for a percentage of the gate with the barnstorming Monarchs, he felt  the lure of the Mexican peso.  After his first winter tour south of the border, he joined the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1933.  There he joined other future Cooperstown players like Judy Johnson, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Satchel Paige.  Under manager Charleston they won the NNL championship in 1935.  The 1935 squad featured one of the fleetest outfields in Negro League history with Bell, Sam Bankhead and Jimmie Crutchfield.  Bell stayed with the Crawfords until 1937, when dictator Rafael Trujillo raided Pittsburgh of its start so stock his all-star team in Santo Domingo (now Dominican Republic.)

The Trujillo club later played in the popular Denver Post Tournament, where Bell batted .450, with five extra base hits and 11 stolen bases in 13 games.  This prompted the sports editor of the Denver Post to write:  “All these years I’ve been looking for a player who could steal first base.  I’ve found my man: his name is Cool Papa Bell.”

Bell was quiet, low –key, and unassuming, with the sleek build of a high school basketball point guard.  Always calm under pressure, Bell recalled, “I was only nineteen and they thought I’d be afraid of big crowds...I took it so cool, they (teammates) began to call me ‘Cool.’  But that wasn’t enough, they [actually manager Bill Gatewood] added ‘Papa’ to it” 

Bell played briefly with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1938 before touring Mexico with the Tampico, Torreon, Veracruz and Monterrey clubs, earning personal salary highs of $450.00 per month.  In 1940 he led the southern Mexican League in runs (119), hits (167), triples (15), home runs (12), RBIs (79) and slugging percentage (.685) in a 90 game season.  Surprisingly, Bell lost the stolen base title to compadre Sam Bankhead.

At the age of 39, Bell returned to the States in 1942 to play with old friend Crutchfield and the Chicago American Giants.  The Following season Cum Posey lured Bell to join his power-packed Homestead Grays which included sluggers Sam Bankhead, Jerry Benjamin, Josh Gibson, Vic Harris, Buck Leonard and Jud Wilson.  The Grays won three straight league titles with Bell anchoring centerfield.  They defeated the Birmingham Black Barons for the World Series championship in 194 and 1944 before relinquishing the title to Quincy Trouppe’s Cleveland Buckeye team in 1945.  Trouppe claims:  “Cool Papa ran like he stole something.”

Bell’s speed was legendary.  He transformed sacrifice bunts into hits and hits into doubles and doubles into triples.  He was once timed on a wet field blazing the bases in a record 13.1 seconds, beating Evar Swanson’s time by two-fifths of a second.  The tan cheetah claimed that in 1924 he circled the bases in twelve second flat on a dry field, with a time of 3.1 from home to first.

Turning 43 years old, Bell retired from pro ball and joined the Detroit Senators, a black semi-pro independent team, for his last hurrah.  In 1948, Tom Baird and J.L. Wilkinson, co-owners of the Kansas City Monarchs, hired Bell to manage their B Team.  The contract called for Bell’s team to be called the Kansas City Stars or the Travelers when they played in Monarch territory and the Kansas City Monarchs when they played outside the Midwestern states.  Bell managed for three seasons, tutoring future major league stars Ernie Banks, Elston Howard and others before his final farewell to baseball. 

After his baseball career ended, Bell worked as a custodian and night watchman at St. Louis City Hall for the next 21 years, retiring in 1973.   He enjoyed his remaining years in a solid red-brick duplex at 3034 Dickson Street.  The city of St. Louis, in recognition of this pioneer athlete, renamed the street “James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell Avenue.”  There he lived for more than 35 years.

Bell claimed much of his athletic inspiration came from his wife Clara.  Clarabelle Thompson and James Bell were married on September 8, 1928 in East St. Louis, Missouri.  They celebrated 62 years of marital bliss before Clara died on January 20, 1991.  Already suffering from glaucoma in one eye, Bell endured a heart attack February 27 and was hospitalized at St. Louis University Hospital.  He died a week later.  The bells had no children.  He was laid to rest in St. Peter’s Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

Former teammate Satchel Paige summed up Bell’s great career in his autobiography, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, saying:  “If Cool Papa had known about colleges or if colleges had known about Cool Papa, Jesse Owens would have looked like he was walking.”

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