"A GREAT AMERICAN":

[L]ike other pre-Negro National League players such as John Donaldson and Cannonball Dick Redding, Poles was a legend. He played everywhere he could latch onto -- joining Pop Lloyd and the Philadelphia Giants in 1909, teaming up with Smokey Joe Williams on the New York Lincoln Giants in 1913 and starring with Redding on Atlantic City in 1919. And although it's hard to totally tabulate his exact numbers, nearly every story or available stat sheet recognizes him as a fantastic hitter, his career average somewhere in the .300-.400 range. SABR researcher John Holway has Poles batting .440 in 1911, .364 the following season in Cuba and an incomprehensible .487 in 1914.

And not only did Poles dominate against Black pitchers, he also, in limited at-bats, did so against white Major League pitching. He reportedly faced big leaguers 41 times in his career and got 25 hits. That's a ridiculous .610 average. In the fall of 1913, playing exhibition series against MLB teams, the 5-foot-9 leadoff batter got three straight hits off Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander and five against George Chalmers.

"He lit Major League pitching up," Kendrick said. "These were documented games; he played Major League All-Star teams that were pretty well stocked with talent. Spot didn't discriminate on who he lit up -- he lit everybody up."

But what most people stress when they talk about Poles is his speed.

"Any time you draw comparisons to the speed of Cool Papa Bell, we know you're fast," Kendrick said. "Some believe he may have even been faster."

Bell, as many baseball fans may know, has always been considered the fastest player in Negro Leagues history -- and perhaps the fastest to ever step onto any baseball field anywhere. There are stories of him getting hit by his own line drives sliding into second base or outrunning the speed of light. Of course, Bell -- now a Hall of Famer -- started his career 12 seasons later than Poles, in the prime of the Negro National League. His numbers were more accurately recorded, his stories more readily reported.

Still, there are anecdotes to back up Poles' legendary quickness. Reporters who covered his career abroad and in the U.S. referred to him as "the Black Ty Cobb." Poles once ran a 100-meter race in less than 10 seconds. Negro Leagues All-Star pitcher Sam Streeter, who saw both Bell and Poles play and thought Poles was faster, talked about a time facing 36-year-old Spot:

"He hit that ball on one hop right back to me," Streeter said. "It was straight, just like a line drive. I turned to throw to first, and he crossed first before the ball got there."

According to Seamheads, Poles' Major League similarity scores can be compared to elite speedsters like Lou Brock and Ichiro Suzuki. [...]

Poles even missed a year of his prime, signing up to fight in World War I at the age of 30 after the 1917 season. And he did it in the face of a country that refused to fight beside him: The U.S. didn't allow Black men to serve with them at the time, so he, and thousands of other Black soldiers, fought bravely for France in the 369th Infantry -- a group famously known as the Harlem Hellfighters. He earned five battle stars and a Purple Heart for a regiment that spent more days on the frontline and lost more people than any other on the Allied side.

"Yeah, for me, his story is more than just baseball. We're talking about a great American," Kendrick told me.

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