By By Marla Ridenour, Akron Beacon Journa
Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, the winningest pitcher in Indians history and one of baseball’s greatest right-handers, died Wednesday night. He was 92.
Feller died of acute leukemia at a hospice where he had been moved in recent weeks, said Bob DiBiasio, the Indians’ vice president of public relations.
He had been in failing health for months. He was diagnosed with leukemia this summer and underwent surgery to have a pacemaker installed.
“Rapid Robert” won 266 games in 18 seasons for the Indians. He missed nearly four seasons in the prime of his career while serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II.
Feller grew up on a farm in Van Meter, Iowa, a town of 410 on the Rock Island Railroad line. Since 1995, Van Meter has been home to the Bob Feller Museum, which draws about 5,000 baseball fans a year.
His high school class numbered 14, but the teachings of his father, Bill, helped Feller emerge from obscurity. Bill Feller was a former semi-pro pitcher who crafted his son’s skills behind the barn. It was a year-round activity; they moved inside with lights and a heater in the winter.
Feller discovered his curveball by accident when he was 8, snapping his wrist while playing catch with Bill. As legend goes, he broke three of his father’s ribs with his fastball.
Without those days on the farm, Feller knew he never would have been a success.
“Absolutely not,” he said in 2001. “We had a team on our farm from 1932-35 and we played all the teams around south central Iowa. I started out playing infield, but I wasn’t that good of a hitter.”
Discovered at an amateur tournament in Dayton when he was 17, Feller was signed by Indians scout Cy Slapnicka for $1 and an autographed baseball. He became the youngest player in Tribe history, but not without controversy.
In his debut season in 1936, Feller was supposed to report to a minor-league team in Fargo-Moorehead, but Slapnicka violated league rules and transferred Feller’s contract to the New Orleans Pelicans and then the Indians before he ever took the mound. Feller was also claimed by Des Moines of the Western League, which had tried to sign him a year earlier, forcing a ruling by baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis that could have declared Feller a free agent.
The Indians were charged with violating the rule prohibiting major-league teams from signing schoolboys. Landis fined the Indians $7,500, but allowed them to keep Feller.
At age 17, Feller wasted no time making his mark. In a night exhibition game, he struck out eight St. Louis Cardinals in three innings, facing a lineup that included Leo Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Joe Medwick, Rip Collins and Terry Moore. Feller also shattered a chair in the grandstand with one wild pitch.
He struck out 15 St. Louis Browns in his major-league debut as a starter in 1936 and tied the major-league mark less than a month later with 17 strikeouts against the Philadelphia Athletics.
“When he first came up, he was wild like most kids,” former Indians catcher and manager Al Lopez said in 2001. Feller set a major-league record with 208 walks in 1938. “But after being in the big leagues a year or two, he became a good control pitcher, a very finished pitcher.”
Known for his overpowering fastball, devastating curve and deceptively high leg kick, Feller was featured in 1940s newsreels that showed his fastball could travel faster than a motorcycle. But Feller later said his curveball was his best pitch.
“I had a very good curveball and I could throw strikes with it,” Feller said. “I could use it no matter what the count.”
Former Indians catcher Hal Naragon of Barberton, with the Indians in 1951 and from 1954-59, remembered how dominant Feller was.
“He always had a great curveball, but people forget about that because they’re so wound up in his velocity.” Naragon said. “He was a great strikeout artist. Batters didn’t say too much, they’d just shake their heads and go back to the dugout. I knew I was catching a legend.”
But it was Rapid Robert’s velocity that captivated everyone. The late Hal Lebovitz, a hall of fame sportswriter who covered the Indians for the old Cleveland News and the Plain Dealer, recalled the obsession in the days before radar guns.
“Somebody came up with a device, a ‘pitch-o-meter’ and put it on a truck,” Lebovitz said. “I think he got to 98.6 (mph). On the present radar guns, he’d be off the wall, 100-plus.”
In 1938, against the Detroit Tigers, Feller set the major-league strikeout record with 18 in a nine-inning game, a mark that stood for 31 years.
Military service
Feller’s decision to enlist in the Navy two days after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor cost him perhaps 100 wins. He was in the prime of his career and had averaged 25 wins a year the previous three seasons. A gunnery captain on the U.S.S. Alabama who earned eight battle stars, he never second-guessed his decision.
“I thought it was about time I did something to preserve the solidarity of this nation,” Feller said.
The day he returned from the service, Aug. 24, 1945, there were 46,477 fans who came out to see Feller strike out 12 and beat the Tigers.
“When Feller pitched, it always drew a big crowd,” Naragon said. “I remember when he came back out of the Navy and the Indians announced he was going to pitch. The switchboard blew out.”
Naragon recalled a Sept. 12, 1954, doubleheader against the New York Yankees when a crowd of 84,587 packed Municipal Stadium, the largest ever for a regular-season game.
“They moved the bullpens down the left- and right-field lines and people were standing in the bullpen,” Naragon said.
Feller’s career started to decline in 1948 when he suffered a shoulder injury, but he still managed to lead the American League in strikeouts for the seventh and final time. He finished with six consecutive victories, and the Indians claimed their first pennant in 28 years.
“Until he got hurt on the mound in Philadelphia, he was untouchable,” Lebovitz said. “Bad stride, bad mound. He was struggling the first half of the year and (owner) Bill Veeck didn’t want him to pitch in the All-Star Game. He wanted him to beg off because of injury. Veeck and (manager) Lou Boudreau said it would help him down the stretch in the second half. Feller was booed because of that, but it did help him down the stretch. It wasn’t his idea.”
Feller opened the 1948 World Series against the Boston Braves, but lost 1-0 in a game that had a controversial call by an umpire.
In the eighth inning, Feller appeared to have picked Braves baserunner Phil Masi off second, but Masi was ruled safe and eventually scored on Tommy Holmes’ single.
Four days later, Feller and the Indians lost 11-5 to the Braves before a crowd of 86,288, with Feller knocked out of the game in a six-run seventh inning.
Those were the lone World Series appearances of Feller’s career, but those two losses didn’t haunt Feller.
“Not at all, because we won the World Series,” he said as the Indians won four games to two in their first World Series appearance since 1920. “I pitched one good game and lost on a fluke. The other game I didn’t pitch well at all and neither did the relief pitchers. I made a lot of mistakes in life. No one’s perfect. I lost 162 games. It wasn’t by accident.”
In 1951, Feller rebounded to lead the American League in victories for the sixth time and in winning percentage for the only time. He finished the final four years of his career as an effective spot starter, but was never put into a game by Lopez in the 1954 World Series in which the Indians were swept 4-0 by the New York Giants.
“In ‘54, even though Bob wasn’t as as he used to be, he was still great,” Lopez said. “As a spot starter, 13-3 was a great year. He was perfect for that situation and had a big part in that ‘54 pennant.”
After his retirement, Feller became active on the autograph circuit and a fixture each year at the Indians’ spring training camp. He made headlines with his outspoken nature, threatening to walk off the stage during the hall of fame induction ceremonies in 2000 if Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman made a pitch for baseball’s exiled hit king, Pete Rose.
Feller was also criticized for saying that his own accomplishments were more significant in the history of the game than Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier. Eyebrows were raised when Feller endorsed the hall credentials of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who was part of what was called the Chicago Black Sox scandal as players allegedly accepted money to throw the 1919 World Series.
“He and Ted Williams were pushing for Shoeless Joe Jackson,” Lebovitz said. “(Feller) said, ‘He didn’t know what he was doing. He had the best Series of any of them.’ That’s another side of Feller, very outspoken.”
That trait didn’t seem to tarnish the respect former players and managers had for Feller.
“He was our player rep, very good to young people,” Naragon said. “They started a pension plan, he was involved in that. He was always well thought of by his teammates, a good person to be around.”
The late Indians center fielder Larry Doby, the first African-American player in the American League who joined Feller in the hall of fame in 1998, didn’t talk to Feller much when they played together.
“He was busy getting prepared to play the game; I was busy,” Doby once said. “The hotel was restricted for people of color. We’d see each other for three hours. But he respected me and I respected him; that’s all you could ask for.”
Doby said he was glad he didn’t have to bat against Feller.
“It was nice to have him on your side,” Doby said.
In a 1956 column on Feller, legendary sports writer Red Smith recounted how a Cleveland reporter spent one winter studying Feller’s statistics and then telephoned him.
“There is just one regular player in the league whom you’ve never struck out,” Smith said the man told Feller. “Did you know you’ve never fanned Birdie Tebbetts?”
“No,” Feller said. “But I will.”
According to Smith, he did.