La noticia me sorprendi\u00c3\u00b3 con dos im\u00c3\u00a1genes. Aquel lanzador del que supimos por reportajes, historias y an\u00c3\u00a9cdotas hab\u00c3\u00ada fallecido de leucemia aguda el 14 de diciembre de 2010. La primera tiene que ver con algo que le\u00c3\u00ad en un art\u00c3\u00adculo de John Kuenster, se jugaba el primer juego de la Serie Mundial de 1948 entre los Indios de Cleveland y los Bravos de Boston. El juego lleg\u00c3\u00b3 0-0 al octavo episodio. Feller hab\u00c3\u00ada conversado con el short stop Lou Boudreau lo que iban a hacer cuando un corredor llegara\u00c2\u00a0 a segunda base. Bill Salkeld se embas\u00c3\u00b3 por boleto. Phil Masi corri\u00c3\u00b3 por \u00c3\u00a9l. Mike McCormick se sacrific\u00c3\u00b3. Boudreau orden\u00c3\u00b3 bolear a Eddie Stanky, Feller no quer\u00c3\u00ada pero sigui\u00c3\u00b3 la estrategia del manager. Con Johnny Sain en el caj\u00c3\u00b3n de bateo, Feller se volte\u00c3\u00b3 y lanz\u00c3\u00b3 a segunda. Boudreau toc\u00c3\u00b3 a Masi antes que se deslizara. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lo agarramos\u00c2\u00a0 como un metro fuera de la base pero el \u00c3\u00a1rbitro Bill Stewart lo cant\u00c3\u00b3 quieto\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Boudreau reclam\u00c3\u00b3, pero Masi permaneci\u00c3\u00b3 en segunda. Luego Feller domin\u00c3\u00b3 a Sain con elevado a la derecha. Pero Tommy Holmes dej\u00c3\u00b3 caer una bala fr\u00c3\u00ada detr\u00c3\u00a1s del tercera base Ken Keltner y de Boudreau para empujar a Masi. El juego termin\u00c3\u00b3 1-0. Fue lo m\u00c3\u00a1s cerca que Feller estuvo de ganar en una Serie Mundial. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Despu\u00c3\u00a9s Stewart reconoci\u00c3\u00b3 que se hab\u00c3\u00ada equivocado\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.
\n\u00c2\u00a0Como se lo contara a Joe Posnanski, Feller tuvo el primer campo de los sue\u00c3\u00b1os mucho antes de la pel\u00c3\u00adcula. Su padre Bill hizo uno para \u00c3\u00a9l en la granja de su propiedad y all\u00c3\u00ad empez\u00c3\u00b3 a jugar con su hijo. Sin decirle que lo har\u00c3\u00ada sab\u00c3\u00ada que su hijo llegar\u00c3\u00ada a las Grandes Ligas.
\n\u00c2\u00a0A los 17 a\u00c3\u00b1os Bob firm\u00c3\u00b3 con los Indios de Cleveland y en su primer juego de exhibici\u00c3\u00b3n ante peloteros de Grandes Ligas, ponch\u00c3\u00b3 8 Cardenales de San Luis en 3 innings. Cuando le preguntaron a Dizzy Dean si quer\u00c3\u00ada tomarse una foto con Feller, respondi\u00c3\u00b3. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Me parece que a qui\u00c3\u00a9n le tienen que preguntar es a \u00c3\u00a9l\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.
\n\u00c2\u00a0 En su primera apertura ponch\u00c3\u00b3 15 Carmelitas de San Luis que eran dirigidos por Roger Hornsby.
\n\u00c2\u00a0 En el juego inaugural de 1940 lanz\u00c3\u00b3 un juego sin hit ni carreras ante los Medias Blancas de Chicago. En 1946 lanz\u00c3\u00b3 lo que el propio Feller llam\u00c3\u00b3 su mejor d\u00c3\u00ada en el b\u00c3\u00a9isbol al lanzar sin hits ni carreras ante los Yankees en Yankee Stadium.
\n\u00c2\u00a0Satchell Paige dijo una vez: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Si alguien lanza m\u00c3\u00a1s duro que Rapid Robert\u00c2\u00a0 el ojo humano es incapaz de seguir ese lanzamiento\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.
\n\u00c2\u00a0Aquella entrega y pasi\u00c3\u00b3n de los jugadores de otros tiempos destilaban en cada gesto y palabras del muchacho que sali\u00c3\u00b3 de una granja de Iowa. Como lo refiri\u00c3\u00b3 James Houlihan en otro art\u00c3\u00adculo. En los d\u00c3\u00adas previos a una ceremonia del Sal\u00c3\u00b3n de la Fama, Houlihan llev\u00c3\u00b3 a su hijo Bryan de 9 a\u00c3\u00b1os a conocer el museo y luego presenciar los actos de la inducci\u00c3\u00b3n de ese a\u00c3\u00b1o. Coincidieron en el hotel con muchos de los peloteros del Sal\u00c3\u00b3n de la Fama. Cuando les toc\u00c3\u00b3 el turno de solicitar un aut\u00c3\u00b3grafo de Bob Feller, Bryan sorprendi\u00c3\u00b3 a su padre al decirle a Feller: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Vi su uniforme hoy en el Sal\u00c3\u00b3n de la Fama\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Bob le dijo: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ah te refieres a mi uniforme de los Indios de Cleveland\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, su uniforme de la Segunda Guerra Mundial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Feller dej\u00c3\u00b3 de firmar aut\u00c3\u00b3grafos y sostuvo una conversaci\u00c3\u00b3n de 15 minutos con Bryan. Por la noche escuch\u00c3\u00a9 una voz. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hola Bryan \u00c2\u00bfC\u00c3\u00b3mo te va?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Era Bob Feller.
\n\u00c2\u00a0 Bob creci\u00c3\u00b3 en una granja de Iowa durante la gran depresi\u00c3\u00b3n. Ayudaba a mantener la familia cazando zorros por un premio de 10 dolares. Al d\u00c3\u00ada siguiente que los japoneses bombardearon Pearl Harbor, Feller se enlist\u00c3\u00b3 en la Naval. Le ofrecieron un cargo de preparador f\u00c3\u00adsico y lo rechaz\u00c3\u00b3, pidi\u00c3\u00b3 que lo pusieran en el frente de batalla. Sirvi\u00c3\u00b3 como franco tirador derribando aviones japoneses.
\n\u00c2\u00a0Regres\u00c3\u00b3 al beisbol 4 a\u00c3\u00b1os despu\u00c3\u00a9s y gan\u00c3\u00b3 25 juegos en 1946, se estima que el tiempo que se ausent\u00c3\u00b3 pudo haber ganado unos 100 juegos.
\n\u00c2\u00a0Tal como lo refiriera un editorial del Boston Globe, Feller fue un legendario lanzallamas que nunca necesit\u00c3\u00b3 que le mantuvieran el brazo con operaciones o l\u00c3\u00admites de lanzamientos, ni mucho menos con relevistas en el bull pen en el sexto inning.
\n\u00c2\u00a0La otra imagen tiene que ver con algo que le\u00c3\u00ad en las p\u00c3\u00a1ginas deportivas de El Nacional en referencia a que Feller una vez midi\u00c3\u00b3 la velocidad de sus env\u00c3\u00ados contra una motocicleta. Tratamos de hacer el experimento en el solar de asfalto donde jug\u00c3\u00a1bamos b\u00c3\u00a9isbol. Lo m\u00c3\u00a1s que conseguimos fue una bicicleta y el ciclista se cay\u00c3\u00b3 por querer salir antes de tiempo.
\n\u00c2\u00a0
\nAlfonso L. Tusa C.<\/p>\n
English translation<\/p>\n
The news caught me with two images. That hurler we knew about articles, stories and anecdotes had passed away due to acute leukemia on December 14th, 2010. The first one has to do with something I read in a John Kuenster article. It was the first game of the 1948 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Braves. The game arrived 0-0 to the eighth frame. Before the game, Feller had talked with shortstop Lou Boudreau about what they were going to do when a runner arrived to second base. Bill Salked walked. Phil Masi ran for him. After Mike McCormick sacrificed Masi to second.Boudreau ordered to walk Eddie Stanky. Feller didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it but he adjusted to the manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strategy. With Johnny Sain at the batter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box, Feller whirled and threw to Boudreau, who tagged Masi before he slid into second base. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had him by two or three feet, but (umpire) Bill Stewart called him safe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Boudreau argued but Masi remained at second. Afterwards\u00c2\u00a0 Feller retired Sain on a popup to right.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But Tommy Holmes hit a bloop single over the heads of (third baseman Ken) Keltner and Boudreau to score Masi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The game ended 1-0. A two-hitter for Feller. It was the closest Feller came to winning a World Series game. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Later on, Stewart admitted \u00c2\u00a0to me that he blew the call.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0As he told to Joe Posnanski, Feller had the first Field of Dreams a long time before the Kevin Costner \u00c2\u00a0movie. His father Bill made one ballpark for him in his farm. There father and son began to play catch and later on hard ball games. Bill knew his son would become a Major League player, but he never talked about it with Bob.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0At age 17 Bob signed to play for the Cleveland Indians. In his first exhibition game before Major League players, Bob strukout 8 St. Louis Cardinals in 3 innings. When the reporters asked Dizzy Dean to take a picture with Feller. Dean said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153After what he did today, he is the guy \u00c2\u00a0to say\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0In his first star, Feller struckout 15 St. Louis Browns whose manager was Roger Hornsby.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0He threw an Opening Day no hitter in Chicago in 1940. In 1946 he delivered a no hitter before the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Sometimes Feller would call that his greatest day in baseball.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0 Satchell Paige said once: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If anybody threw that ball harder than Rapid Robert, then the human eye couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00c2\u00a0follow \u00c2\u00a0it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
That passion and integrity characteristic of those players from the past, distilled in each gesture and words \u00c2\u00a0coming \u00c2\u00a0from the \u00c2\u00a0boy who came from a farm of Iowa. James Houlihan wrote about it in another article. In the previous \u00c2\u00a0days \u00c2\u00a0to an inductance ceremony in the Hall of Fame, Houlihan took with him his 9 year old son Bryan. Many of the Hall of Fame players and their families were staying at the same hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 Later on, they were on\u00c2\u00a0 a line to get autographs from Bob Feller. When the pitcher was signing his autograph, Bryan said: “I saw your uniform at the Hall of Fame earlier today.” Bob replied: “Oh, you mean my Cleveland Indian uniform?” Bryan said: “No, your uniform from World War II.” Fort he next \u00c2\u00a015 minutes, Feller stopped signing autographs and had a lengthy conversation with Bryan. Later on that evening while crossing the lobby of the hotel, father and son heard \u00c2\u00a0a call out. \u00c2\u00a0“Bryan, hey Bryan, how’re you doing?” They turned around and who was it but Bob Feller.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0Bob grew up in an Iowa farm during the Depression. He helped support his family by hunting foxes for a $10 bounty while he was a boy. The \u00c2\u00a0day \u00c2\u00a0after the \u00c2\u00a0Japanese \u00c2\u00a0bombed \u00c2\u00a0Pearl Harbor, Bob Feller enlisted in the Navy. When he was \u00c2\u00a0offered a soft cushy position as a physical \u00c2\u00a0instructor and roaming baseball player, he turned it down. Instead, he requested active combat duty. Bob served for \u00c2\u00a0the \u00c2\u00a0entire t erm of World War II, first as a gunner \u00c2\u00a0shooting \u00c2\u00a0down Japanese planes and later kamikaze pilots.<\/p>\n
He got back to baseball 4 years \u00c2\u00a0later and won 25 games in 1946. During the time he was out of baseball, he probably \u00c2\u00a0would \u00c2\u00a0have won approximately 100 more games.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0As it was written in a Boston Globe editorial, Feller \u00c2\u00a0was a legendary \u00c2\u00a0fireballer \u00c2\u00a0whose \u00c2\u00a0fastball wasn’t preserved \u00c2\u00a0by \u00c2\u00a0arm surgery \u00c2\u00a0or pitch counts. Feller’s was an era before night games, relief pitchers jogging out of the \u00c2\u00a0bullpen from the sixth inning on, and that fountain of youth known as the Tommy John procedure.<\/p>\n
The other image has to do with something I read in the sports pages of El Nacional about the time Feller measured his fastball speed against a motorcycle. We tried to reproduce the experiment in the sandlot we used to play ball. We only could get a bicycle and the rider fell down because of his anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0Alfonso L. Tusa C.<\/p>\n
Alfonso\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work has been featured in Venezuela\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daily newspaper, El Nacional and in the magazine Gente en Ambiente, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collaborated on several articles for newspapers, including the daily paper Tal Cual. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also written three books and biographies for SABR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s BioProject.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" La noticia me sorprendi\u00c3\u00b3 con dos im\u00c3\u00a1genes. Aquel lanzador del que supimos por reportajes, historias y an\u00c3\u00a9cdotas hab\u00c3\u00ada fallecido de leucemia aguda el 14 de diciembre de 2010. La primera tiene que ver con algo que le\u00c3\u00ad en un art\u00c3\u00adculo de John Kuenster, se jugaba el primer juego de la Serie Mundial de 1948 entre los Indios de Cleveland y los Bravos de Boston. El juego lleg\u00c3\u00b3 0-0 al octavo episodio. Feller hab\u00c3\u00ada conversado con el short stop Lou Boudreau lo que iban a hacer cuando un corredor llegara a segunda base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t