The Cleveland Indians of the mid-1930's had rarely been a contender since their one and only world championship in 1920. So when they discovered 17-year-old Bob Feller, an Iowa farm boy with an awesome fast ball, they actually rushed him to the mound during the 1936 summer vacation between his junior and senior high school years.
A Sensational Debut
Feller debuted by pitching three innings against the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition game that July. His striking out eight on a club that had won the 1934 World Series attracted immediate attention around the baseball world. When he followed up by striking out 15 men in a regular season game in August and a record-tying 17 in September before returning to school, he burst on the national scene as well. Time Magazine featured him on its cover the following April to mark the opening of the 1937 season and the NBC radio network covered his high school graduation live three months later.
Rapid Robert, as he was now being called, won 17 games in his first full season, 1938, and led the league in strikeouts with 240. He capped the season on October 2 by striking out 18, a new record that would stand for over thirty years. Equipped with an impressive curve ball as well, he was already being compared to pitching immortals like Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson and his fastball was the subject of newsreels.
The American League's Top Pitcher
The next three years clearly established Feller's ranking as the American League's top pitcher as he won 24, 27, and 25 games, respectively, and led in strikeouts each time as well. On Opening Day, 1940, he pitched the first of three career no-hit games.
But with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Feller immediately enlisted in the Navy and missed three full seasons and most of a fourth, returning to pitch in nine games in 1945. The following year, he turned in one of the finest pitching performances on record, winning 26, hurling 36 complete games including another no-hitter, and striking out 348, five shy of the all-time record. But pitching 371 innings that season probably did long-term harm. He never pitched 300 innings again, and while he struggled to barely make 20 wins in 1947, he was about to be overshadowed even on his own team.
Heartbreak, Decline, and Glory AgainIn 1948, Feller was an important contributor as the Indians finally got that elusive second pennant. He won 19 games and led the league with 164 strikeouts, but the team now had two 20-game winners in Bob Lemon and rookie Gene Bearden.
Given the deserved honor of opening his first World Series, Feller pitched a brilliant two-hitter, but lost, 1-0, after an apparently missed call by the umpire on a pickoff play. Given a second chance after Cleveland had won the next three games, he was hit hard in five innings and lost again. He never got another chance to pitch in a World Series.
Feller slipped to 15 and 16 victories, respectively, in the next two seasons and was considered to be playing out the string, when he came back in 1951 with a magnificent 22-8 record and his third no-hitter. He pitched until 1956, compiling 266 victories, but never regained the heights. Despite a fine 13-3 record in 1954, he was not used in the World Series, in which the Indians were swept by the New York Giants.
Rapid Robert was a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 1962. Besides his actual achievements, most assume he would have won in the neighborhood of 350 games had it not been for the war.
References: Bob Feller Museum
Baseball Almanac.com
