Bob Feller Passes Away at 92

[cambridgeho]

Just want to say RIP Bob Feller. He was an Icon for the City of Cleveland and Baseball.

[Cowsrus]

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/12/15/bob-fel...e-finish/?flv=1 Rest in peace Mr. Feller. Thank you for your contributions to Cleveland baseball and for your Naval service for which you were more proud of than all of your accomplishments to baseball.

 

I was lucky enough to see him once in person and that was at the Cleveland Indians 100th anniversary in 2001.

December 15 2010 Last updated at 11:50 PM ET

 

<H1 class=entry-title>Bob Feller's Delivery Fierce to the Finish</H1>By Pat McManamon Senior Writer A real natural existed before Roy Hobbs was a creation in a filmmaker's mind. A guy who learned to pitch throwing into a makeshift backstop with his father on the family farm in Iowa. A guy who would achieve greatness in baseball and willingly sacrifice some of that greatness for his country.

 

Bob Feller was an original, special on the mound, priceless off it. He mowed down hitters with his ferocious fastball and high leg kick, and attacked issues and topics away from the game the same way. Like all of us, Feller was made of many parts. But unlike most of us, Feller's pieces were not soft-edged or beveled. Feller was the way he pitched -- forceful, fast and firm.

More Coverage: Hall of Fame Pitcher Bob Feller Dies at 92

[/color]Tim Wendel learned much about Feller when he wrote "High Heat," a book about the fastball in baseball history. His travels and interviews naturally took him to Feller, and the two chatted in Cleveland at length.

 

Wendel and Feller talked mechanics. His youth in Iowa. How he learned to pitch with his father Bill Feller and how he perfected the delivery that baffled major league hitters. Feller related that his father used a generator to string lights, because there was no electricity. He would pitch to a makeshift backstop. His dad would hit him ground balls in the hog lot, and the two played basketball on a hoop his father set up. Feller believed the elements that made him special were all rooted in Iowa.

 

"He felt strongly that one reason he was able to throw the ball so hard and the reason he had such a long career," Wendel said, "was doing chores on the farm. He felt all that got him in really good shape at an early age. He was balanced, no doubt, physically."

Feller wrote in his book, Bob Feller's "Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom", that his chores included milking cows, picking corn, throwing bales of hay and straw, feeding hogs, pumping water and cleaning the barns. He detailed how each chore helped strengthen him, giving him a natural workout.

 

Feller also believed that the fact that he worked and played different sports helped him.

 

"He was adamant about that," Wendel said. "We had a talk one time about how today's kids participate in sports. Two things set him off about that. One is that once a kid starts showing ability in a given sport, we somehow make him special. Therefore if a kid is on a farm today, he's not doing as many chores as Feller did.

 

"Feller -- and guys like Nolan Ryan and Joe Montana -- also really believed you become a better athlete when you play different sports year-round. You're not

as good if you are concentrating on one sport. The same muscles are not pounded all the time."

 

Wendel even found medical and scientific evidence to back up the claim when he visited the biomechanics lab of famed orthopedic surgeon James Andrews in Alabama. "They were just as adamant as Feller and Ryan," Wendel said.

 

Wendel also discussed with Feller the time Major League Baseball tested to see if his fastball or a motorcycle was faster. He was in Chicago in 1940 to play a game and Major League Baseball asked him to come to Lincoln Park about noon. Radar guns and timing devices did not exist in those days, so Lew Fonseca, a former player and director of promotions for MLB, decided to find out the speed of Feller's fastball. Feller, wearing a suit and wing tips, was given a ball and told to throw it. Wendel watched film of the test, which Feller had with him.

 

"He goes into an abbreviated windup," Wendel said. "It was not a high leg kick like you see on the diamond. Just as he begins his motion, a Harley Davidson driven by a Chicago policeman went roaring by his right side, going better than 80 miles per hour.

 

"You can see Bob flinch a bit and he goes ahead and throws the ball. The camera pans and the ball races ahead of the motorcycle. If you do the math... 60 feet, six inches, a motorcycle going 86, divide by 60.5, add to that. ... The gist is that supposedly it worked out that day at Lincoln Park that, throwing against a motorcycle, with a flinch, he threw about 104 miles per hour."

 

Feller did not practice for the test. He merely showed up, and Fonseca showed him a target he had to hit the size of a cantaloupe.

 

"The luckiest part of the whole thing was that the ball went right through the middle of the bulls-eye," Feller wrote in his book. "I thought I'd be lucky to hit the target at all. There was no trickier or Hollywood-type shots."

 

 

(1946) Feller's fastball clocked by military equipment at 98.6 mph In 1946, Senators owner Clark Griffith used equipment developed by the military during World War II and borrowed from the Aberdeen Proving Ground to time Feller, and had his fastball clocked at 98.6. Sports Illustrated reported that speed then would equate to 101 mph now -- and it came after a back injury cost him something off his fastball. Feller wrote that he was clocked at 107.9 miles per hour.

 

The fastball combined with a nasty curve to produce staggering baseball numbers. Feller won 266 games, threw 36 complete games in 1946, threw three no-hitters and 12 one-hitters, made eight All-Star teams and struck out 2,581. Everyone in baseball agrees the 266 wins could have been 350, but Feller's principles cost him four years of his career -- the prime of his career.

 

On Dec. 7, 1941, Feller was driving from Van Meter to Chicago to meet with the Indians and sign a contract. As he crossed the Mississippi in Davenport, Iowa, he heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Feller enlisted that day, hoping to join the Air Force. His hearing, though, had been damaged by riding a tractor on his farm, so he volunteered -- note the word -- for combat and was assigned to a battleship in the Navy, the Alabama.

 

Feller spent time in Iceland, then the Alabama took supplies and weapons to Russia. Eventually he went to the Japanese front, where he saw action in numerous battles -- some among the worst in the war.

 

"I thought it was the thing to do," he said

. "Of course as far as I'm concerned, I'm no hero. The heroes didn't return to this country. They're in Europe, in the bottom of the Pacific or on the islands of the Pacific."

 

Feller gave a speech to veterans about his World War II experience that is available on YouTube, and summed up war this way: "The only thing that counts in a war is who's got the most guns and the men who know how to use them best. The hell with diplomacy."

 

"Of course as far as I'm concerned, I'm no hero. The heroes didn't return to this country."

-- Bob Feller on his service in the Navy That was Feller. Blunt and forceful, like the way he pitched. He didn't hide or back down from an issue, he faced it head-on. He came from a time where political correctness was not paramount, and never bought into it himself. He simply stood for what he believed -- and stated it.

 

When

, Feller mentioned sailing to Fiji. "We've got Fiji Water up here in our room at the hotel," he said. "I wouldn't drink water in the Fiji Islands if I needed it. Especially at five dollars a crack."

 

Feller described the war battle by battle. He stated proudly that the Alabama never lost a man to enemy fire. He knew casualty figures from the battles where he fought, and when he described the action in the Pacific, his voice broke.

 

In 1957, Feller went one-on-one with Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" fame, with Feller stating that baseball's reserve clause was unfair. As Wallace attacked him because baseball players made so much money, Feller simply stated that the system was not fair -- a stance that 20 years later would be supported by the federal courts.

 

Feller was staunchly opposed to Pete Rose being re-admitted to baseball, and has stated publicly that neither Rose nor steroid users should be in the Hall of Fame. He chuckled on Cleveland TV when asked how much money he could make today, but said he'd pitch on one-year deals only because "I believe in paying someone for production rather than potential."

 

He wrote in his book that Walter Johnson probably had the best fastball ever in baseball, but added: "He did not, however, have a curveball. I had the fastball, curveball, slider and changeup."

 

Bob Feller was no politician. But he was a pitcher, pure and powerful, and he was a patriot.

[PeytonHillis]

This is my first post.. RIP Bob Feller.