The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell by Lonnie Wheeler

Author:Lonnie Wheeler [Wheeler, Lonnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Cool’s locomotion was in fact a wonder to all concerned. The first time he tripled, the game was paused and the opponents argued that, in order to get to third so quickly, he must surely have bypassed second base and cut a more streamlined path across the field. It was a complaint that Bell had heard back home as well, his blurring of the basepaths being so optically irregular. Even umpires had a difficult time sorting through what they’d seen, occasionally calling him out for not touching first base as he turned the corner for second. Unlike other runners, Cool Papa pushed off the bag with his left foot while the ump was focused on the right. Once, when Bell protested the decision, the man in blue said, “Didn’t I see your right foot go over that base?”

“Well,” Papa replied, “I got two feet.”

In the Negro Leagues, the problem was corrected when Bell began alerting the umpires before the game to his funky footwork. He also advised them that he might not always step on the base, per se, but would at least brush it with his toe. For full disclosure, he might have added “usually,” but in the spirit of tricky ball he perhaps didn’t; having gained the benefit of the doubt, Cool was not above taking competitive advantage. He was not likely, however, to press that advantage in a foreign land, in front of a full house and federal soldiers with rifles angled across their chests.

It was a tense time, and one that the Negro Leaguers, though unaccustomed to an atmosphere of such urgency, didn’t shrink from. A month after Bell and his compadres had come to the rescue, by which time only two of the original Dragones remained on the team, San Pedro de Macoris had been eliminated from the title chase and the Dominican Republic was ready for the final phase of the National Baseball Championship for the Reelection of President Trujillo.

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