“Cool Papa Bell:” What if everybody was like him?

Why did Paul Simon write this song? Who was Cool Papa Bell? What can he and the song teach us about today?

Never a sports fan until I began writing The FOG MACHINE, I became entranced by the Negro Leagues along the way. Leagues formed, beginning in 1920, when Black players were barred from professional baseball’s major and minor leagues. Leagues that began to disappear when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

Always a Paul Simon fan, I am humbled by his lyrical genius. In each song, whether serious or whimsical, meaning is layered artfully on every word, every phrase, the entire structure. It seems that every time I listen to a Simon song, I hear new meanings. Interpretations spawned “then”—perhaps decades earlier—give way to understanding and social commentary in the context of “now.”

And so it is with “Cool Papa Bell,” released on Simon’s Stranger to Stranger album in 2016.

“We got the well, well, well/And Cool Papa Bell/
The fastest man on Earth did dwell as Cool Papa Bell”
Credit: https://www.paulsimon.com/music/stranger-to-stranger/

Who was Cool Papa Bell?

An excellent article by William “Brother” Rogers in Mississippi History Now (August 2008)—online essays and lesson plans produced by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History—begins with this:

Cool Papa Bell is considered to be the fastest man ever to play professional baseball. His achievements, in the Negro Leagues and in Latin America, earned his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1974. His Hall of Fame plaque reads in part, “… Contemporaries rated him fastest man on the base paths.”

Contemporaries rated Cool Papa Bell fastest man on base paths
Photo courtesy of National Baseball Hall of Fame

Born James Thomas Bell in 1903, the Starkville, MS native earned his nickname during his rookie season. Enroute to the game, he was surprised to learn that he would be the starting pitcher. The 19-year-old maintained his composure throughout, contributing a home run; striking out legendary hitter Oscar Charleston in an intense, high-stakes showdown; and earning the win by one run.

Quite simply, Bell was prolific at all things baseball—hitting, running, fielding, and stealing bases. An outstanding switch hitter, he never hit below .300 in any season. His lifetime average in offseason exhibitions barnstorming against teams made up of white major leaguers was .311, and his overall lifetime average was .341. He stole 175 bases in his 200-game 1933 season with the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Legends abound. One of the best—about being able to turn off a light switch and be in bed before the light went out—involved his good friend Satchel Paige. Paige loved to tell that story, as well as this one: “One time he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit him sliding into second.”

Beyond legendary was the consistency with which fellow players described Bell, the man. As Judy Johnson, considered one of the best third basemen to play in the Negro Leagues, said of Bell: “He had time for everybody. Never hurried. Signed autographs, talked to the people, gave advice on baseball, anything they wanted. All the time showing his big, beautiful smile. He was so kind. If everybody was like Cool, this would be a better world.”

“…All the time showing his big, beautiful smile. He was so kind…”
Photograph courtesy Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

What did I learn, then weave into The FOG MACHINE about the Negro Leagues?

Baseball enters The FOG MACHINE early in the story as main character C.J. is seeing her little brother off to school in small-town Mississippi in 1954:

Charlie lunged for his pail, but C.J. had already lifted the lid. She held out a baseball. Not just any baseball, but the one their daddy brought home from the Army in 1938. Its red lacing, sewn as neatly as if by their momma’s hands, was still tight. The smudges here and there were Louisiana dirt and grass. Until now, the ball had sat in the curio cabinet, turned just right so they could admire the signature—John L. Bissant of the New Orleans Black Pelicans. “Daddy would take a stick to your behind if he saw this.”

Baseball, and conversation around it, become a way of connecting. C.J. is able to talk with one of her employers who has her radio tuned to the 1958 World Series between the Yankees and the Milwaukee Braves.

The radio suddenly got louder. “Holy cow!” screamed a man who talked a bit like Miz Barnes. “We’re FOB!”

“Yes! Full of Braves!” Miz Barnes jumped up to turn up the volume. “My Braves have loaded the bases. I do so want them to beat the Yankees and take the series.”

“You got a favorite?” C.J. asked. “My daddy got a ball once, in New Orleans, signed by Johnny Bissant.”

“I’m quite fond of Warren Spahn. But that Negro Henry Aaron is awfully good.”

“You ever seen him play, that Mr. Aaron?”

“No, I left Wisconsin before the team moved to Milwaukee, when Mr. Barnes was in medical school.” Miz Barnes sounded wistful. “Have you ever seen that fellow who signed your ball?”

“No’m—”

The talking man became very excited again. Miz Barnes held her breath, then let it out in a sigh. “Turley got him. It’s still two-one, Yankees.”

The Negro Leagues—in their heyday and their decline—become a metaphor for progress in the Civil Rights Movement. C.J., who is Black and has lived most of her life under Jim Crow, and Zach, her Jewish friend from New York City, find themselves perched on branches of an ancient burr oak in Chicago’s Jackson Park Wooded Island in 1961 as Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle go head to head to break Babe Ruth’s home run record.

…A tree much like this old Burr Oak at The Morton Arboretum…
Credit: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/816251

“…Pop taught me about the legends of the Negro Leagues. He saw some of them when the championships were in Yankee Stadium.”

“Wonder why he wanted to go to those games?”

“More exciting, he said. Stolen bases. Everything faster.”

C.J. pulled an acorn from her pocket. She felt it in her hand like the rag ball and pitched it at an old log. It hit square on.

“Cool Papa Bell, fastest man ever to play pro baseball,” Zach said. “Satchel Paige. Maybe the best pitcher ever lived. And Oscar Charleston—they called him the black Ty Cobb.”

“Seems kind of insulting, being called the black somebody.” She threw another acorn and another. Both hit their mark.

Zach whistled. “I think it was kind of a measurement. Comparing the best to the best. They called Josh Gibson the black Babe Ruth. He hit eighty-four home runs in 1936, and some say he was the only man to hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium.”

An acorn finally fell short of the log.

“That’s what I mean, though.” He scowled again. “About not much changing since Babe Ruth. My pop always said Gibson should have been up against him.”

“Johnny Bissant wasn’t well known like those you’ve named. But my daddy always said you got to catch the ball that’s thrown to you, not be pining after some other one. Look at the Negro players all over the white teams now. One of them will do it.”

“Not just baseball, C.J.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Zach. I think everything has changed. I’m in Chicago, up a tree with you. Talking about what a sight it woulda been, Gibson and Ruth chasing the home run record like your Maris and Mantle—”

Why might Simon have written about Cool Papa Bell?

It was April 28, 2016 when Simon shared “Cool Papa Bell,” a new track from Stranger to Stranger, due out June 3.

In a June 2, 2016 interview for Vox, Elon Green asks Simon:

With the song "Cool Papa Bell," your music reflects a half-century love affair with baseball, at least going back to "Mrs. Robinson" and Joe DiMaggio. Have you always had an interest in the Negro Leagues?

Simon replies:

Well, I wouldn't say I always had an interest in it. I wasn't aware of it when I was a kid, but I've known about it for a long time. It must have been at least 15 or 20 years ago that I went to visit the museum in Kansas City. I met [Kansas City Monarchs first baseman] Buck O'Neil and spent some time with him and listened to stories about [St. Louis Browns and Cleveland Indians pitcher] Satchel Paige and [Homestead Grays catcher] Josh Gibson and all the great players, including Cool Papa Bell.

Photo by Myrna Suarez
June 2, 2016 Vox interview by Elon Green

In the liner notes for Stranger to Stranger, Simon says, “A friend gave me a painting of Cool Papa Bell, and somehow he found his way into a song.”

Simon goes on in the Vox interview:

Then, of course, it's like, what's the song going to be about if it's Cool Papa Bell? That's another problem, but for a lot of people, I think, they're going to get a lot of pleasure out of just discovering who he was and what that time was in baseball.

In a May 26, 2016 piece for the Seattle Times, music critic Paul de Barros declares “Cool Papa Bell” “the best song on the album” and continues:

Like so much work by baby boomers these days (Patti Smith, most recently), “Cool Papa Bell” circles back continually to themes of mortality and borrowed time. Invoking a celestial object 6 trillion light years away, Simon speculates, “We’re all going to get there one day,” then answers, “Right, but not you!”

De Barros abbreviates here. You’ve got to listen to the song to appreciate Simon’s comedic delivery with perfectly timed pauses. “…We’re all going to get there someday.” … “But,” … “but not you.”

So what? What might we take away today?

The album prior to Stranger to Stranger was So Beautiful or So What, released in 2011. In the title song, Paul Simon asks: “Isn’t it strange the way we’re ignorant, how we seek out bad advice…So beautiful, so beautiful, so what?”

In the scene in Jackson Park, C.J. imagines Josh Gibson and Babe Ruth chasing the home run record like Maris and Mantle. Her voice is strong with the conviction of her hope as she insists to Zach, “Look at the Negro players all over the white teams now. One of them will do it.”

Considered by many as America’s favorite pastime, baseball is everything from entertainment, to a topic of endless discussion and debate, to a shared identity. “As American as baseball and apple pie,” as we are fond of saying.

Baseball players—of all colors and creeds—who have shaped American identity are the legends of all the leagues. Among those, Cool Papa Bell stands tall.

I, for one, have gotten a lot of pleasure out of discovering who he and other greats of the Negro Leagues were. Thank you Paul Simon, for calling up Cool Papa Bell to the majors of history. And thank you Judy Johnson for capturing his essence: “If everybody was like Cool, this would be a better world.”

Baseball legends mentioned in The FOG MACHINE
Images courtesy of:
Detroit Free Press (Cobb), kchistory.org (Paige), LA Times (Ruth), National Baseball
Hall of Fame and Museum (Spahn), Negro League Baseball Museum (Bell, Johnson),
 Negro League Baseball Players Association (Bissant), Society for American Baseball
Research (Aaron, Charleston, Gibson, Mantle, O’Neil, Robinson), Sports Illustrated (Maris)