Iowa background

That was a long way from the Van Meter, Iowa farm on which he was raised after his birth on Nov. 3, 1918. His father encouraged Feller in his pitching, often warming him up behind the barn. Feller was a big star in Iowa high school and amateur baseball, sometimes striking out more than 20 batters in a game. He felt that the manual labor he did on the farm built his body and was a big factor in his success.

Cyril "Cy" Slapnicka, the Indians chief scout who later became the team's general manager, heard about him and signed him for $1 and a baseball autographed by the Indians.

Feller never played minor league ball. Slapnicka brought him to Cleveland in 1936 and had him pitch for Rosenblum Clothes, a top team in local Class A sandlot baseball, which was big then. He hurled two games for the Rosenblums. A crowd of 20,000 saw him strike out 15 batters against the Poschke Barbecue team at Brookside Park.

His first test against major leaguers came in an exhibition against the St. Louis Cardinals at League Park in 1936. Feller worked three innings and struck out eight batters.

A photographer asked Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, the great Cardinal pitcher, if he would pose for a picture with Feller. Dean, amazed at Feller's ability, said, "Sure, but ask him if he'll pose with me."

Feller made his first official big league start on Aug. 23, 1936 against the St. Louis Browns. When Feller went to the mound, Indians manager Steve O'Neill sent veteran Denny Galehouse to the bullpen to warm up in case Feller had trouble. After Feller struck out the side in the first inning, Galehouse sat down. Feller struck out 15 batters, one short of the league record, in a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Browns. The Plain Dealer called it the greatest pitching debut ever.

Gets 17 at 17

Two weeks later, on Sept. 13, 1936, Feller broke the American League mark with 17 strikeouts in a 5-2 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics. He was still only 17 years old.

After the season, he returned to Van Meter for his senior year in high school. He could not play basketball for the school because he had already become a professional athlete. He was accompanied by a tutor when he went to spring training.

On Oct. 2, 1938, Feller struck out 18 members of the Detroit Tigers, setting a big league strikeout record that stood for 31 years. He lost the game, 4-1, as Harry Eisenstat pitched a four-hitter. He was 17-11 that year at age 19.

The next three seasons, he was 24-9, 27-11 and 25-13.

Considering Feller almost unbeatable, Detroit manager Del Baker used an unknown rookie, Floyd Giebell, against him when the Tigers came to Cleveland for a pennant-deciding series on the last weekend of the 1940 season. Baker, needing only one win for the flag, preferred to hold back his two best pitchers, Bobo Newsom and Schoolboy Rowe, for the next two games.

But Giebell beat Feller, 2-0, for his third and last big league victory. Rudy York hit a pop-fly homer into the first row of seats, just inside the left field foul pole, for the win. "I thought it would be a foul ball," Feller recalled later. "The wind blew it back in."

Bob Feller talks with WEWS' Nev Chandler in 1990

Part of mutiny

Earlier that year, Feller participated in the Indians rebellion against hated manager Oscar Vitt, when 11 players on the team walked into the office of owner Alva Bradley and asked that Vitt be fired.

"When Bradley saw Feller there, he knew it meant something," former teammate Mel Harder said. Vitt was fired at the end of the season.

Feller enlisted in the U.S. Navy two days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, throwing America into World War II.

In 1942, Feller was stationed at Norfolk, Va. He and his fiancee, Virginia Winther of Waukegan, Ill., decided to get married in January 1943, before he shipped out for combat. Virginia had attended Rollins (Fla.) College and had met Feller during spring training. She was the daughter of a wealthy engineer.

Feller had a leave scheduled for the wedding. A few days before, his beloved father died. Feller went to the funeral and married Virginia five days later, saying his father wanted it that way. Eventually, they had three sons, Steve, Marty and Bruce.

In the navy he served for 26 months on the battleship USS Alabama, rising to the post of chief gunner's mate. He received eight battle stars for combat in the Pacific and North Atlantic.

Feller comes home

With the war coming to a close in 1945 Feller was reassigned to the Great Lakes naval base in Illinois. The Cleveland newspapers speculated for months that his return to the Indians was imminent.

He was finally discharged on Aug. 22, 1945, eight days after the war ended, and returned to Cleveland to pitch against the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 24. "This is what we've been waiting for," said The Cleveland Press. "Feller flings tonight."

On the day of the game a civic luncheon was held in Feller's honor at the Carter Hotel. A crowd of 1,000 attended. "It was a testimonial without precedent in the city's history," said The Cleveland News.

"The real heroes didn't come home," Feller said in his brief talk.

A parade was held before the game. World War I veterans marched from the bleachers to home plate, followed by Feller and Mayor Thomas Burke, then all the Indians and Tigers players.

Tris Speaker, player-manager of the world champion 1920 Indians, presented Feller with a jeep. Boudreau gave him a pen and pencil set from the players. His wife received an armful of roses. When Governor Frank Lausche arrived during the game, the action was stopped until he made his presentation.

"I was so tired from all the receptions I didn't know if I could finish the game," Feller said later.

It was as though he had never left. Feller pitched a four-hitter and beat the Tigers and Hal Newhouser, 4-2, as Pat Seerey hit a home run.

Glorious year

In 1946, Feller had what he called his greatest season, winning 26 and losing 15 for a sixth-place club. He hurled 36 complete games. His 348 strikeouts beat Rube Waddell's record total of 347 in 1904. But a researcher went into the musty books and gave the record back to Waddell after a recount, saying he actually had 349.

Feller was off to another brilliant start in 1947. He had 10 strikeouts in four innings on a rainy night in Philadelphia, then slipped off the wet mound and injured his back. "My fastball was never the same after that," he said. He finished the season with a 20-7 record.

His decline started in 1948, when the Indians won the World Series. He won the season opener with a four-hitter over St. Louis, then began getting pounded. He went winless from May 19 to June 20. "I was picked for the All Star game, but I refused to go because I was so bad," Feller recalled.

The fans booed Feller mercilessly as he was knocked out game after game with the Indians in a tight pennant race. He never complained. "They had a right to boo," Feller said. "It never bothered me. Baseball's a game. It's supposed to be fun. I never broke up clubhouses or threw towels if I lost."

On July 22, Feller's record was 9-12. Boudreau refused to take him out of the rotation. "We sink or swim with Feller," he said.

Tough under pressure

Feller came through down the stretch, going 10-3 the rest of the season and leading the league in strikeouts for his seventh straight year. On one occasion, he threw a complete game and saved a game the next day. On Sept. 22, he beat Boston, 5-2, before 76,772, putting the Indians into a tie for first with the Red Sox.

Four days later he pitched the Indians into first for the first time since late August, beating Detroit, 4-1, and improving his September record to 6-0. However, with a chance to wrap up the pennant on the last day of the season, he lost to Detroit, forcing the Indians into a single-game pennant playoff against Boston, which they won.

Feller started the first game of the 1948 World Series and threw a two-hitter, but he lost to the Boston Braves, 1-0, when Tommy Holmes singled in Phil Masi in the eighth inning. Feller and shortstop Boudreau picked Masi off second base moments before, but umpire Bill Stewart called Masi safe. Photographs showed Boudreau tagging Masi two feet from the bag. "Stewart was the only guy in the park who thought he was safe," said Feller.

He also started the fifth game of the Series, but lost, 11-5, at the Stadium before 86,255, biggest crowd in baseball history to that time.

In 1954, Feller was 13-3 as the Indians won the pennant, but he never got a start in the World Series as the New York Giants won four games in a row.

"It never bothered me that I never won a World Series game," he said in 1998. "As my dad used to say, 'You can't saw sawdust.' That's history."

Labor leader

On Dec. 11, 1956, after his retirement as a player, the first ballplayers association was established, with Feller serving as the first president. In 1958 he broadcast baseball games for the Mutual Radio Network.

In 1962, he was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, becoming one of the few players to get the honor in the first year of his eligibility.

Feller started an insurance business in 1954 and stayed in it after retiring. His marriage was troubled. In one of his autobiographies, "Now Pitching," Feller said his wife had become addicted to amphetamines and barbituates. He said that life became a nightmare in the family. He blamed his financial difficulties on her habit and illness.

By the time he and Virginia were divorced in the early 1970s, he lost the insurance business. The house was sold and Virginia and the sons received all the money, he wrote. Eventually, he paid off all his debts. Virginia died in 1981.

He credited Allen Lowe, an old friend who was manager of the Cleveland Sheraton Hotel, with helping him get on his feet financially. Lowe let him stay at the hotel free of charge and helped him get a position as Sports Sales Director for the Sheraton chain, booking events such as the major league owners meetings. Later he got the same job with the Hilton organization.

Wedding bells

In 1974, he married the former Anne Gilliland. a Gates Mills neighbor who had two children, John and Rachel. They built another home in Gates Mills.

In 1980, Indians President Gabe Paul hired Feller to worked in public relations for the team. He was in constant attendance at Indians games, sitting in the pressbox where he was always available for interviews. He participated in the Indians' annual Fantasy Camps in Florida and gave talks in schools.

Spurred by the baseball nostalgia craze of the last few decades Feller traveled all over the country, usually accompanied by Anne, to attend card shows and sign autographs. He took cruises to places such as Hawaii and Fiji, talking baseball with vacationers who were thrilled to meet the great old pitcher. In 1975, he spent three months in Japan working with the pitchers on the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. He established the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, which was designed by his son, Steve. Wife Anne designed the lighting.

"It's always nice to be immortalized when you're still above the grass," he said.

When Jacobs Field was opened in 1994, a statue of Feller in his pitching form was unveiled outside the park. It was created through a civic drive for donations, led by the Growth Association.

Feller was always outspoken. He unabashedly said he was a hawk when it came to the nation's military conduct. He was named an honorary member of the Green Berets. He supported the banishment of Pete Rose from baseball for gambling and said he should never be elected to the Hall of Fame, earning Rose's enmity.

Even though he worked in public relations for the Indians, he maintained that the 1948 Indians would have beaten the fine Cleveland clubs of the 1990s.