9iii.
PsLge 6A-M1RROR HERALD—Thursday, July 28, 1816
Bob Feller Taking Baseball To The People
Ambassador for baseball.
That seems like a good title for Bob Feller.
The Hall of Famer and former Cleveland In
dians pitching great visits over 100 towns each
summer on behalf of baseball and enjoys every
minute of It.
Much of his time is spent In speaking
engagements, like last Thursday night when he
was in Kings Mountain to speak at the Babe Ruth
state tournament banquet; but Feller seems to get
his biggest kick out of donning his old Cleveland
uniform for a clinic or old-timers game. And he
keeps his pitching arm In shape by signing
thousands of autographs.
Feller took time out during his KM visit to talk
about the changes baseball has gone through since
his heyday.
"It hasn’t changed much an the field,” he says.
"They’ve tried the phoney grass and it proved
very unsatisfactory.
"They lowered the mound three inches. When I
came up there was no regulation for the mound. It
could be three Inches or three feet.
"The pitchers probably have more stuff as a
group,” he states, "but they’re not as good as the
best ones of my time and before. I don’t think the
righthanders are doing a good job of holding men
on base. ’They make it tough on the catchers."
Hitting, he says, hats fallen off sharply because
of the crave of the home run.
’”rhere’s no morale victory in not striking out,”
he says. ’"There’s money In power pitching and
power hitting. You can’t hit the ball out of the park
by just trying for a base hit. So, there’s not as
much pride in not striking out. They know if they
take a good swing three times they’re more apt to
hit the ball out of the park.
’"The first time the American League averaged
more than three strikeouts per team per game
was the year I broke the strikeout record in 1946,”
he said.
Feller said there was some dispute as to whether
or not he broke the record. He registered 348.
Some people during that time claimed the record
was 344. Others claimed 349.
"I wrote the league office during the middle of
season and asked them if it was 344 or 349,”
Feller recalled. "They wrote back and said 344.1
stiU have the letter and have it framed. If it had
been 349 or more, I could have pitched a few more
innings.”
After his strikeout feat. Feller said the
strikeouts began to pile up because of the hard
swinging.
"Walter Johnson was probably the fastest
pitcher ever,” Feller said, "but he didn't get as
many strikeouts as I got because in his day the
guys with the big heavy bats just choked up and
went for singles. They weren’t hitting home runs
because of the dead ball.
"Then, after World War One they started the
live ball and Ruth came along and put the rabbit
in it and it started taking off.”
But now, getting to some of the changes, most of
wWch-are coming off the field. Feller says the
owners, business agents and player represen
tatives have changed the game.
’ ’When I was player rep of the American League
many years ago we recommended that the
players select the commissioner along with the
owners, and also pay for his office.
"If that were the case today,” he added, "the
disputes would end in his office and not in the civil
courts and Washington.
"But the owners didn’t want that. They wanted
a one-way street. They wanted to hire and fire the
commissioner and say ’we’ll take care of the
money and you take care of the bslls and bats.
And when you’re through, bye bye.’
"The club should have some hold on the
player,” he went on, "but the player should also
have some hold on the club. They don’t have. If
they sign this agreement they have now, the guys
that thought they were going to be free agents in
the fall won’t be free agents at all. They have to
sign their contracts at a 25 percent cut if the club
wants them to. However, if they’ve been around
for awhile, they’ll be free when they get their five
or six years in, or whatever the agreement calls
for in the small print that nobody seems to know
anything about except Marvin Miller.”
In his travels In the minor leagues, Feller says
he’s learned to love the minor league parks
because of their "personality.”
"Maybe the showers aren’t the greatest, or the
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fields, or the seats,” he says, "but they’ve got
personality. They’re all different. In the major
leagues parks, you could wake up in the morning
and not know what town you we,re in.... they’re all
so much alike.”
Of the major league parks. Feller says he favors
the old ones, like Cleveland, Detroit and Yankee
Stadium, which provide challenges for the pit
chers and hitters.
"Can you imagine Ted Williams hitting in
Cleveland or Detroit with those short right field
fences? He’d have hit a thousand home runs. And
take DlMaggio with that big leftfleld in Yankee
Stadium. I don’t know how many balls he hit 420
feet that were cans of com.”
Farm life. Feller said, helped him and most
other players of his time because as youngsters
they were working themselves into shape without
even realizing it.
"I used to work on the farm where there was a
lot of manual labor Involved in the use of your
hands and legs. You were walking, always on your
feet. I pitched 36 complete games one year out of
39 starts. We didn’t have relief pitchers in those
days. You didn’t need them.
"They say relief pitchers are specialists,” he
went on. ’"^ey’re not specialists. They can’t do
anything else. Have you ever seen Rhyne Duren
start a ballgame? I have. He’d go four innings and
not have anything more than my kid sister. All
great pitchers still complete a lot of ballgames
and always will. The saying is ’go out there and
throw as hard as you can and we’ll pick you up
with somebody<«|fg||^f that were the cs^e, all
you’d need is just nine pitchers and pitch one
inning a day and never lose.”
Feller says television has turned baseball into
show biz, which is good in some ways.
"It pays for our pension plan, which I’m a part
of smd helped work on as a player rep.
"Marvin Miller would like for everybody to be
Ueve that he Invented the pension plan,” says
Feller. "He didn’t. I didn’t. It came In In 1946
because all of the players were jumping to
Mexico. They said they’ve give them a pension
plan and maybe they’d come back. And they did.”
FeUer who signed his first contract at the age of
16 after playing four years of American Legion
ball and one year of semi-pro, could have become
a free agent himself once and demanded some big
money.
“I was signed illegally by C. C. Slapnicka, a
scout for Cleveland. But I lied and said I was
signed by the manager of the Fargo club. When
the judge declared 183 players free agents for
being signed illegally, he asked if I wanted to be
free and my father said no.”
Feller says his father was the most Important
Influence on his career. As a boy, he recalls
playing baseball with his father "between the
Bob Feller autograplm aiwAer picture^
bam and the house...out there in the hog lot.
"I still have my dad’s old mitt that he caught me
with. I won’t let Cooperstown have that. I have it
In a museum of my own."
Feller’s pro career was Interrupted by WWII,
like so many other greats, like Williams. But he
doesn’t regret serving his country, even though he
could have set many more records during that
44-month tour of duty. He was 23 years old when
he joined the Navy.
"When I came back from the war,
everybody was wondering if I was washed up,” he
said. “In fact, on my first trip to Yankee Stadium
after I returned, Joe Rlker wrote a story that I
was all washed up. That afternoon I pitched a no
hitter and beat them 1-0.
"That had to be one of the highlights of my
career,” he said, "because I knew all of the
Yankees. We traveled with the Yankees and
Giants all over the southeast during the exhibition
season.
"On exhibition tours, you got to know everybody
reel close,” he said. "I enjoyed that. Now, they
play a ballgame and everybody goes in different
directions.”
Feller says Rogers Hornsby was the tou^est
rlghthand hitter he ever pitched to but calls
Williams the best hitter of all time, "because he
hit the ball with power. Ty Cobb maybe was a
better hitter but he choked up and just met the
ball.
"Ted always had his natural swing except when
he was trying to be funny like when they pulled the
Williams shift. I saw him hit a home run about
three feet fair down the leftfleld line one time
when we pulled the Boudreau shift in Cleveland.
He just walked around the bases cause everybody
were to the right of second base. So he just
dropped one down the leftfleld line and
walked laughing all the way.
"Ted hit me for an average of about .238,” he
went on. "But nobody had his number. He’d wear
you out, then maybe you’d get him out for awhile,
then he’d wear you out again...4-for-4, extra ^se
hits...shots going out of there like bullets t4
fans in the stands.”
one of his biggest gripes about
Is the difference in the rules....like
d hitter.
’I don’t dRy the DH is wrong,” he says, "but it is
wrong in that all rules in pro baseball should be
the same. The parks can’t be the same so the rules
should. If they want to experiment, let them ex
periment in high school and college. Don’t use the
Worid Series as a guinea pig test.
“What’s to prevent them from having a
designated runner designated catcher, or
anything else? If you have one exception, why not
,haYe t?vo ,Jhree?r, * ^
Mfls90klnftba^<F|Mer saj^he has no regrets.'
THe’s proud to be a ricord-setter suid proud to be in
the Hall of Fame. He’s proudest, though, when
he’s carrying the game of baseball to the fans in
Kings Mountain and other towns like it.
WllUC,
i base
knows how to get
things done.
Ed O’Herron is a successful business
man who made it on his own. He wasn’t
born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
As a boy, Ed delivered newspapers
to earn spending money. His first full
time job was in the stockroom of a small
drug store. During World War II, he
volunteered for the Marines, and sent
his.paychecks home for house payments.
Ed knows the value of an honest
day’s work. It was the key to his success
during his 30 years in business and 14
years in government. And it will be the
key to his success in providing the firm,
mature leadership needed to get North
Carolina moving forward again.
Ed knows the value of a dollar, too.
He’ll see that we have an efficient state
government —one that will provide
a dollar’s worth of service for every dollar
of the taxpayers’ money. He will put
people ahead of politics. His team will
be chosen for what they can do for
you. not for what they have done for
politicians.
Ed hasn’t made any political promises.
And. he won’t. When you elect Ed
O’Herron governor, the only debt he’ll
have is to you.
He’s concerned about your problems.
People can’t afford to have
their bills going up faster than
their incomes.
The cost of living in North
Carolina is goirg up as fast as
anywhere, but the average family
income is not. We need direction
and leadership from the
governor’s office to bring more
skilled industries to our state.
Industries that will use our
people’s skills, so they can earn
more money.
From my 30 years of business
experience, I know these indus
tries. I know hojv to sell them
on North Carolina. And I’ll make
better paying joos my biggest job.
We must protect people from
criminals, and our children
from becoming criminals.
I believe that swift apprehen
sion. speedy trials, and stiff
sentences are deterrents to
crime. We have to stop pamper
ing criminals. I will use the full
power of the governor’s office
to get repeat offenders off the
streets and into the prisons.
But we must also fight crime
by giving all young people the
opportunity to earn a good,
honest living. This means giving
our children a meaningful educa
tion ancf bringing better paying
jobs to North Carolina.
We need stricter laws to
improve the discipline in our
schools.
The biggest problem in the
public schools is discipline. With
out order in the classroom,
children cannot learn to read or
write — no matter how good their
teachers are.
As governor, 1 will provide
the leadership needed to revise
state laws, and give principals
and teachers authority to main
tain a climate for learning. My
goal is to provide every child in
North Carolina an education to
prepare him for a full and abun
dant life in tomorrow’s world.
North Carolinians pay enough
taxes.
It’s hard enough for people
to buy food and pay their every
day bills without paying more
taxes. I am opposed to any
increase in taxes.
Our state already has a
$3.4()(),()0(),0(K) budget! We
don’t need higher taxes if this
money is managed efficiently.
As governor. I’ll see that more
of your tax dollars are spent on
services for people, instead of a
bureaucracy for politicians.
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