“Once he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second." ~Satchel Paige

James “Cool Papa” Bell might have been the fastest man to have ever played the game of baseball. It was rumored that, in his prime, he could round the bases in less than 12 seconds. (Wow!)

And although record keeping in the Negro Leagues was intermittent and sketchy, what is known for sure is that Cool Papa hit .391 in over 40 exhibition games against all-white major league pitchers, including some of the best white pitchers to ever play the game. (Wow again!)

After reading this painstakingly researched biography, I find myself somewhat at a loss for the right words. Mostly I am struck by the enormity of what we missed. It’s not that the baseball legends of the American Negro Leagues (1920-1948), like Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, were born too early to compete in a baseball meritocracy of fairness and equality. The reality is that the doors of opportunity, the parapet of baseball’s racist segregation, swung open far too late.