Published: Saturday, April 03, 2010
By Dennis Manoloff, The Plain Dealer CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bob Feller's mind tells him he still can throw the speed ball by you. Or, if necessary, buckle your knees with a nasty curve.
Feller's body disagrees. He has been forced to make concessions that come with being 91 instead of 19.
"My best pitching weight was 183," he said. "I was exactly 6 feet tall, but I've lost an inch and a half, two inches, already because of age."
Already?
"Yeah," he said. "It happens."
Feller spoke from a room with a view in his Gates Mills home, days before he left for Indians' spring training in Goodyear, Ariz. The franchise's greatest player was just getting warmed up -- figuratively and literally. He poured coffee for his visitor as deer scampered in the backyard behind him.
Last June, Feller was a starting pitcher in the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame Classic in Cooperstown, N.Y. He played a significant role in the formation of the classic, which he and others hope will fill the void created by the cessation of the Hall of Fame Game.
The first Hall of Fame Game was played in 1940. Hall of Fame officials said Major League Baseball decided that keeping the game was unrealistic because of the complexities of the major-league schedule.
To Feller, a 1962 inductee, it sounded like an excuse – a weak one at that. He thinks MLB simply wanted to wash its hands of the game, in large part because players from the two teams were not thrilled about coming.
"All Major League Baseball players should visit Cooperstown (N.Y.) and walk the Hall of Fame," he said in February, repeating what he said last summer and the summer before that. "When you go there, you see you're not the greatest thing on earth. There were people before you. Too many of the players today, I think, don't know what the Hall of Fame looks like or why it's there."
When the Indians open the regular season on Monday in Chicago, Feller will be there. He is being honored for his no-hitter against the White Sox on Opening Day 1940. It remains the big leagues' only Opening Day no-no.
Feller went 266-162 with a 3.25 ERA in an 18-year career, all with Cleveland (1936-1956). He missed almost four seasons because of military service. Even with the time lost, Feller ranks on any credible list among the greatest pitchers ever.
Feller burst onto the scene as a 17-year-old fireballer out of the Iowa cornfields. Seventy-four years later, the words, not the fastballs, bring the heat:
PD: When you hear the term 'living legend' used to describe you, what does it mean?
PD: Which of the nicknames most attached to you do you prefer: The Heater from Van Meter, Bullet Bob or Rapid Robert?
BF: I don't like any of them that much, to be honest. To me, Bullet Bob is Bullet Bob Turley (1958 Cy Young winner). Rapid Robert is the most popular, but I don't care for it. Anne, my wife, doesn't like it, either. I prefer to be called Bob. If they call me Rapid Robert, well, so be it.
PD: In official baseball records and on your statue outside Progressive Field, you are listed as Robert William Andrew Feller. What is behind the two middle names?
BF: My father's name was William. My grandfather -- his father -- was Andrew. Andrew's widow, when I was born in 1918, wanted me to have her husband's name. She asked right in our home in Iowa. So my parents said, "Yes, we're going to name him Robert William Andrew Feller." They didn't. She never knew it when she went to her grave. My legal name at the county recorder's office in Dallas County, Iowa, is Robert William Feller. Robert William Andrew Feller is not my name, legally.
PD: But you don't mind the two middle names?
BF: I don't mind at all.
PD: Growing up on the farm in Iowa, what was your least favorite chore?
BF: Cleaning out the barns on Saturdays, taking the manure out from the horses and livestock, was work we didn't want to do.
PD: Favorite chore, if that's possible?
BF: Sure, it's possible. I enjoyed feeding the hogs, shelling the corn to the hogs. Mostly, I enjoyed being with my father, especially when we'd feed the livestock, milk the cows and play catch in the hog lot. If not for my father, I would have had a lot more trouble staying in condition, because he would catch me at dusk every day. He'd hit grounders to me, I'd throw to him. He pitched batting practice.
BF: We finally built a ball diamond in the pasture. We cut down 20 trees, put the post in the ground, put up the chicken wire and built the ballpark. We peeled the infield and fenced off the outfield to keep the livestock off. We started building in 1931 and by 1932 my dad had a team out there, a bunch of farm kids. We played all the time.
When the seams on the balls would break and the stitching would come out, we used to take the covers off and sew them back up with harness thread. It was 108 stitches if you did it the way we did, 216 if you did it the other way. We'd run the harness thread through a big ball of bee's wax and put the covers back on.
PD: It sounds like you had the original Field of Dreams.
BF: More than 50 years before they built one in Dyersville. I've been up there. It's a waste of time.
PD: The field from the movie doesn't cut it?
BF: Oh, no. They never had a team up there. All they ever had was a movie. We played games for four years before I came to Cleveland.
PD: Is your dad's field still in play?
BF: No. It hasn't been there for years. It's soybeans and corn. Nothing on it would make you think a ball diamond was ever there.
PD: Did your dad teach you how to pitch?
BF: No. He didn't teach me, he caught me. I learned how to pitch by trial-and-error method.
PD: What were some other chores growing up?
BF: Fixing fence, fixing harness, currying the horses, shoveling grain, castrating the hogs.
PD: Castrating hogs doesn't sound like much fun.
BF: First we had to catch them. Then I would hold them and my dad would castrate. Otherwise, they'd turn out to be boars. Once you'd castrate them, they'd gain weight faster. We always sold them. They weighed about 225 or 235 pounds.
BF: No. Let's just put it this way: There's an old saying: 'If the good Lord didn't put it in you, you can't get it out.' God gave me gifts. I was very lucky to have good coordination and good rhythm. But I had to develop what I was given.
PD: Growing up, what exercises did you do not related to chores?
BF: Finger-tip pushups. I hit the speed bag a lot. I had a 125-pound barbell and 25-pound dumbbells. My right arm and left arm were about the same, strength-wise.
PD: Could you have pitched lefty if you wanted?
BF: Oh, hell no. I'm 100 percent right-handed. I'm not at all left-handed. About 25 years ago, I tore my left rotator cuff and never had it repaired. It bothers me to this day. It bothers me when I try to catch the ball coming back.
PD: The right/left thing almost sounds personal. What gives?
BF: I never tried lefty. I was right-handed from the day I was born.
PD: What exercises can young pitchers do to help with the curve?
BF: I did finger-tips pushups. And I put my palms on a bench or chair and let the butt come near the ground. Up and down, like this (Feller demonstrates). Doing things like that will strengthen the ligaments around the ulnar bone and ulnar nerve in your elbow. I'll say this: You can't keep your elbow in shape by sitting there eating popcorn or watching a video or reading a book.
PD: When did you begin doing finger-tip pushups?
BF: At 8 or 9.
PD: Smartest person you've ever met?
BF: My father. I've been around this country a lot and I ask a lot of questions. I'm going to ask you this question: If you have a person with a great education or great intelligence or great common sense -- which would you choose?
PD: Common sense.
BF: I've asked 1,000 people that. They all say the same thing you said. That was my dad. He went to eight grades of school, but he had great common sense and insight. He knew human beings very, very well. He was honest. He paid cash for everything. He worked hard for 40 years. He never took a vacation for over 40 years. My father was a very successful Iowa farmer. He didn't give me money, he gave me time.
PD: I read where you also built up strength carrying buckets of water.
BF: It was dry and dusty in Iowa in the early '30s, although the dust storms didn't hit Iowa as much as they hit Nebraska, Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma. We bailed water out of the Raccoon River, which runs right through Van Meter. The farm was a little northeast of Van Meter. We carried five- to seven-gallon buckets out of the river, up the bank and dumped them in a tank in the back of our Dodge truck or a wagon with horses. And we hauled it to the cattle.
PD: Favorite player growing up?
BF: Rogers Hornsby was No. 1. My father liked Hornsby. Walter Johnson and Babe Ruth were up there.
PD: Do you remember the first pro game you ever attended?
BF: The first one that comes to mind wasn't a major-league game. It was when I saw Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig play on their barnstorming tour -- the Larrapin' Lous and the Bustin' Babes. They came through Iowa when I was a boy. I got a ball signed by both. Babe pitched one inning. Ruth and Gehrig batted once each inning. They had their own uniforms.
PD: What is your greatest achievement as a baseball player?
BF: My best decision in life was joining the Navy two days after Pearl Harbor. Getting back to my achievement as a baseball player, it would be being the first president of the Major League Baseball Players Association, in the 1950s. I started the baseball players association; now it's a union.
PD: But you don't get credit for that in the game's history books.
BF: Nobody knows it. ... Not many people know it. I took over when some other guys retired. You had to be on the active roster to represent the players. I organized the first convention, at a hotel in Key West, Fla. I've spent my entire baseball life fighting for players' rights, standing up for players. I'm proud of that.
PD: You also advanced the integration of baseball, having organized Bob Feller's All-Stars against Satchel Paige's All-Stars in a barnstorming tour in 1946.
BF: We put on a great show. Satchel Paige would have been one of the top five-to-10 pitchers in history if he had pitched in the big leagues during his prime.
PD: When did you first hear of the attack on Pearl Harbor?
BF: While I was driving to Chicago. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to enlist. When I got to Chicago, I called Gene Tunney, head of the Naval Physical Fitness Program. I told him I was ready to sign up to join the Navy. He told me what I needed to do.
PD: Gene Tunney, the boxer?
BF: Yes. And Jack Dempsey was with the Coast Guard's physical fitness program during the war. I knew them both.
PD: Did you ever think about what you were giving up to enlist, and that you might lose not only your career, but your life?
BF: As soon as the war broke out, I was in, no matter what I was doing at the time. I wasn't concerned about anything but trying to do whatever I could to help my country.
PD: You went on to serve with distinction from 1941 to 1945. How does it feel to be a war hero on top of being a Hall of Fame player?
BF: I'm no hero. Heroes don't come home from wars. Don't get this wrong: Heroes don't come home from wars, survivors come home from wars. I'm a survivor.
PD: You were a gun captain on the USS Alabama in the Pacific theater. What did that entail?
BF: I was in charge of 25 guys -- 24 on the guns, one guy standing beside me. I pulled the trigger.
PD: Were you ever afraid to die during combat?
BF: Never gave it a thought. You always knew that if a bullet had your name on it, you were going to get it. But when you're young, everybody thinks it's got somebody else's name on it. That's why we have wars.
There was always a little panic, sure. Everybody had different emotions. But you had a job to do, and you needed to have a clear head. What they teach you in war college is, when you're on the guns, kill the other guy before he kills you. We had a few gutless people aboard, yes, and we got rid of them.
PD: What do you mean by "got rid of them"?
BF: Shore duty or something else way from the ship.
PD: Did you ever have someone next to you die?
BF: No. On the other side of the ship, several got killed by friendly fire. One of our 5-inch guns fired right into the back of another one during the night and killed everyone in there.
PD: Did you shoot down kamikazes?
BF: Oh, hell yes. We had Variable Density goggles, which I have in my museum in Iowa. Kamikazes would come out of the sun at high noon, and you supposedly couldn't see them. We could use the goggles to block out the sun and see the plane and splash it with the barrel straight up. We fired eight rounds a second out of the 40-mm quad.
PD: How many planes did you, personally, shoot down in the course of the war?
BF: It's hard to tell whose bullets hit which targets because everybody's firing. But we splashed a lot of them.
PD: How close did an enemy plane get to you?
BF: A "betty bomber" got pretty close one time. It came in about 10 feet above water, at dusk. The betty bombers would weave around, trying to get by battleships and cruisers to get to the carriers, which were full of aviation fuel. This one was coming right at us, where my battle station was. It got pretty close, maybe 1,000 feet -- it's hard to judge distance on the water. It was dead ahead. Everybody was firing, all the 20-mm and 40-mm.
PD: Your 1946 season was unreal: 26-15, 2.18 ERA, 3711/3 innings, 277 hits, 348 strikeouts, 36 complete games. Do you consider it your best ever?
BF: By far.
PD: How did it happen?
BF: Barnstorming was only supposed to be for 10 days after the '45 season ended. I made a deal with (Commissioner) Happy Chandler to go 30 days so guys could make some money they lost in World War II. I had a baseball clinic for returning servicemen for one month in Tampa, Fla. I worked out every day. I was in exceptional baseball condition by spring training.
PD: Other than salaries, what is the biggest difference between players of your era and today?
BF: A large percentage of them don't know the fundamentals, or don't work at them. I respect the abilities of today's players; there's a lot of very good ones. But I don't think these ballplayers, as a whole, practice and review the fundamentals like we did.
PD: Why do you suppose that is?
BF: It's a different game. It revolves around money. No secret there.
PD: Do you blame today's players, though, for grabbing as much cash as possible?
BF: Absolutely not. More power to them.
PD: If you were MLB commissioner, what is one change you would push for immediately?
BF: I would promote baseball more in the United States and not worry so much about promoting it around the world. They're trying to expand baseball to countries that don't even want it.
I would increase spending on promoting the game in this country's grade schools, high schools, colleges. Each ball club should increase its support of local sandlots, junior highs, high schools and colleges. That's more important than the steroids, the DH or some of the other issues people talk about now.
I mean, how often do you drive around and see a father playing catch with his kid in the yard? Not often. It's sad. I don't think the game's fast enough for people nowadays. They want to see action. They don't have the patience to watch something develop.
Coming Monday: In Part II, Bob Feller talks about his life in the game of baseball and about his no-hitter on Opening Day in 1940.
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