Jackson, MS, names street for Bell, 'Fastest Man Ever to Play Baseball.'

The first baseball star from the Negro Major Leagues to have a street in Mississippi named in his honor is 91-year-old James Thomas (Cool Papa) Bell, who, at age 41, had an unbelievable .583 batting average with the champion Homestead Grays of Pittsburgh.

After listening to Mississippi officials read proclamations, Bell, the first native-born Mississippian to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, watched as the streets leading to and from Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson were dedicated in his honor as James (Cool Papa) Bell Drive.

Although the agile outfielder already had been immortalized in a highly-laudatory article by James Riley in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Negro Baseball Leagues,Cool Papa was also a legend best known for his dazzling speed in running and stealing bases as well as his quickness in chasing and catching baseballs in the outfield.

Perhaps, the greatest tribute paid to his rocket-like speed comes from legendary Leroy Satchel Paige, a fellow Hall of Famer, who played on teams with the fleet-footed, slash-hitting outfielder. In the book, Black Diamond, written by Black authors Patricia C. McKissack and Frederick McKissack, Jr., Satchel said that Bell could "pull the light switch and run across the room, hop in bed, and cover up before the light went out."

The three-day celebration of the James (Cool Papa) Bell Drive was organized by Connie Brooks, Bell's daughter, who, according to the New York Times, "has been a vigilant keeper of her father's legacy and a guiding light to the 138 surviving members of the Negro Leagues."