{"id":10224,"date":"2010-12-15T23:25:31","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T06:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=10224"},"modified":"2010-12-15T23:35:03","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T06:35:03","slug":"bob-feller-in-his-own-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/15\/bob-feller-in-his-own-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Feller in His Own Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago I went through newspaper archives from the past 30 years or so to gather up some of Bob Feller’s remarks on his life, his baseball career, and many other topics.<\/p>\n

Feller was one of the last surviving stars who’d played major league baseball before the U.S. entered World War II. Besides that, he was a controversial, foreground figure who hadn’t become just an old man you saw being celebrated at various baseball events: Feller didn’t retreat behind the decades-old image of him as the phenomenal Rapid Robert and quietly accept the various honors that came his way. He remained engaged and opinionated about the changing circumstances of American life, not just baseball but politics, war, and economics. It meant losing some fans who didn’t like what Feller had to say, but it made him more interesting and provocative than many aged Hall of Famers.<\/p>\n

In the wake of his death, here, in chronological order, are some of the comments and recollections he made from 1985 to early 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1985:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have never kept an actual count, but I am convinced that I have thrown more baseballs than any other human being in history. I started when I was 5 and, like an idiot, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still doing it.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Of course, all that probably proves is that I am not too bright.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In 1986:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t throw the fastball with the hop on it anymore. Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get my big behind around like I used to. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work on the curves. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need them in the old-timers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 games. The players in those game keep getting younger, you know. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to be ready for them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I take good care of myself. I get my rest, drink my milk, never go near tobacco, have very little to do with alcohol.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My fastball once was clocked at 107.9 miles an hour. Of course, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t throw it that fast for a whole game \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but I assure you I could throw it 100 miles an hour for a whole game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m as proud of my war record as I am of my baseball records. When fellows my age talk about the war, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to stand in the back and listen. I can talk to them and with them. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to me. Always has been, always will be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In 2005, when a fan wanted to know if Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams was tougher to get out:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153DiMaggio, to me. Ted and I had a Mexican standoff. As soon as I started to throw DiMaggio inside after the war, I started to get him out. Ted was the better hitter. Trying to throw a fastball by Williams was like trying to get a sunbeam past a rooster in the morning.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

On using steroids: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very stupid. It ruins your health, your brain, your sex organs. Rules mean nothing. Instant gratification to set a record. Is it worth it? Not to me, it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Not to me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In 2010, remembering life on the Iowa farm<\/a>, circa 1930: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I enjoyed being with my father, especially when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hit grounders to me, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d throw to him. He pitched batting practice.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We 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.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d run the harness thread through a big ball of beeswax and put the covers back on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Finally: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a union.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You always knew [in combat during WWII] that if a bullet had your name on it, you were going to get it. But when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re young, everybody thinks it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got somebody else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name on it. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why we have wars.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago I went through newspaper archives from the past 30 years or so to gather up some of Bob Feller’s remarks on his life, his baseball career, and many other topics. Feller was one of the last surviving stars who’d played major league baseball before the U.S. entered World War II. Besides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,9],"tags":[4397],"class_list":["post-10224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-general","tag-bob-feller"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}