By Ed Piper
My new Negro Leagues "B" cards arrived, and I played my first two (three-inning) exhibitions today with "Cool Papa" Bell and shortstop supreme Willie Wells smashed the 1933 Indianapolis American Giants in the second game of the doubleheader, 6-0, behind right-hander Ted Trent's suffocating one-hit hurling at Piper Stadium (my living room).
Trent, who went 25-5 with a 2.54 ERA for the 1928 St. Louis Stars (I bought a jersey in Kansas City at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum during COVID), enjoyed the hitting and speed of Bell, said to be the fastest man ever to play baseball, who tripled and singled twice to score two of the Stars' runs, and drove in another run in the third.
Cool Papa Bell, whose given name was James, could turn out the bedroom light and hop into bed and pull the covers over himself before the room went dark, it was said of his legendary speed.
Well, I was enjoying this new set of Strat-O-Matic cards, based on recent research and the discovery of many box scores from the 1920-1948 era of Black ball to identify eight stellar teams and their rosters.
These new cards supplement my previous Diamond Gems Negro Leagues cards (now labeled "A" to differentiate them from the most recent ones), which I purchased before COVID and played Strat-O-Matic with--three dice per roll, with a 1-20 dice for fielding, using fielding charts for each position.
"We are in the Golden Age of Negro Leagues research," according to essays in the book The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues (published in 2022). Going back to my days taking Black Studies my senior year in high school (1970-71), and similar at Chico State (1973-75), where I graduated, I have always been an enthusiast and an advocate for--shall we say--an alternative view of the world to some of those in baseball who have been very conservative and slow to change over the years. (Baseball holds on to this more than basketball and baseball, who have been quicker to change.) (I also taught Black and Chicano studies in the Juvenile Court and Community Schools system during my 20 years there before retiring in 2015.)
Most people I talk to have heard of Satchel Paige, who also played in the Major Leagues for the Cleveland Indians in his 40's after the color line was broken by Jackie Robinson in 1947. People also mention Josh Gibson, a catcher called "the Black Babe Ruth"--or rather, Babe Ruth being the white Josh Gibson! Then "Cool Papa" Bell is pretty cool, after all, with his nickname.
What's kind of funny with my Strat-O-Matic doubleheader I led off this story with, is that I had the 1928 Willie Wells play his 1933 self (in 1928 he batted third in the lineup, until most recently the power/consistency slot in the batting order, which is now the second slot). I also had Bell bat leadoff and play centerfield, which he did in his prime for the 1928 Stars, in the same second game, while playing left field in the first game for the 1943 Homestead Grays.
What I am surprised by is the most recent culling of newly-found box scores going back to the 1920's and earlier, the identification of Black players we didn't know about, and the calculation of RBI's (which were a statistic in MLB until 1920, I believe), on-base percentage, and all sorts of things to further quantify the production of Negro Leagues and Blackball players.
What is significant in this research is that major league competition among Negro Leaguers and against white-ball MLB teams is differentiated from games against semi-pros, colleges, and other amateurs. "Barnstorming" is the term for these extra-curricular games that the Negro Leagues teams had to drum up to supplement their clubs' and their own income--often on the weekends during the baseball season, while weekdays involved the higher level of play.
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