Out of interest, where do you rank Ryan?

higher than most on net54

Bill James if memory serves had Feller 12 (counting Negro Leagues) and Ryan 24th. I would think most would have them closer together.

I've got this 1935 Iowa State Amateur Baseball Tournament scorebook featuring 16 year old Bob Feller. This was the tournament at which Feller was "found" by superscout Cy Slapnicka. He was signed shortly thereafter. The scorebook was the official scorer's book kept by the Iowa Amateur Athletic Association's State Chairman Joe Campbell. Feller's team of farm boys ended up winning the tournament against many of the well sponsored city boys. Feller was probably 8 - 10 years younger than most of the participants.

In the tournament, Feller pitched 27 1/3 innings, had 49 strikeouts and gave up 14 hits, 10 walks, 4 runs (1 earned run). The only earned run was on a home run. In the last two days of the tournament, Feller pitched both complete games and likely threw over 300 pitches!

Attachment 540744

Very interesting, had not really been aware of these accusations, nor the Doby interview. Didn't listen to the entire thing, focused more on the racism parts and the conversation surrounding Feller though. Also did some searching regarding the alleged refusal of Feller to shake Doby's hand.

What is funny (and sad) is how a lot of the BS from back then is virtually no different than the half-truths, innuendos, and sometimes outright lies that different sides continue to hurl at each other to this day, and will continue to occur and do so as long as there are still humans on this planet.

As I kind of expected, I couldn't find any definitive or collaborative evidence to support that Feller actually did refuse to shake Doby's hand. I'm going to guess that came about when some heard about Feller's supposed racist comments, and so immediately assumed he must have been one of those that had snubbed Doby, and of course those same people then use Feller's name to pass on the message because he's the biggest name/star tied to the incident and will therefore bring the most notice and attention to what they just said. It is just like all the online, media and other platforms spewing crap back and forth today, before any of these current ones existed.

Interestingly in the interview, the question of Feller shaking hands is never asked nor addressed by Doby. Are there any known interviews or quotes where Doby definitively states that Feller did refuse to shake hands with him that day? Also in the interview it talks about something(s) Feller apparently said that are interpreted as racist, but Doby never actually states exactly what it is that Feller said that was so bad. He almost purposely does it, it seems, so no one can directly come back to ever refute him and what he was saying. I'm assuming it has to do with comments attributed to Feller making at one time that he didn't think any Negro League players were good enough to play in the white ML, and/or that he didn't think Jackie Robinson was all that good (too muscle bound, couldn't turn on an inside pitch) and that had he been white, he likely wouldn't have been called up to the majors. Was that being racist, or was that Feller simply stating his opinion on the baseball abilities and talents, in relation to a specific game played at a specific level that he was infinitely familiar with, of certain groups/people?

I'd previously posted that it was Feller entirely behind setting up barnstorming tours where white ML all-stars played against black Negro League all-stars, and took them around the country, to play before both black and white patrons. And along with making money for everyone, it also opened up and presented blacks playing against whites to huge segments of the white population that otherwise may not ever have been exposed to it before, making it more and more acceptable to larger segments of the population. Granted, this was certainly not the first time white MLB players had played against black players, but it was arguably the most orchestrated, hyped, and celebrated up to that point in time. If Feller was truly so racist, why would he have purposely gone to such trouble and effort to play with Negro League players? In fact, it could easily be argued that Feller was exactly the opposite of a racist, and his barnstorming tours actually helped to promote equality and acceptance of Negro League players to larger and larger segments of both the racially divided white AND black segments of the population, and make the coming integration of MLB easier and more accepted than it might have been otherwise.

And for the record, I believe Feller was known to have expressed he felt Doby was a much better player than Robinson. But in regard to comments Feller may have said about thinking blacks in general, or Robinson in particular, maybe not being good enough to play in the MLs, is it possible that people weren't really looking at this from Feller's point of view to see him treating the black players just like he would any other rookies coming up to a MLB team? Remember, any rookie coming in was likely replacing and taking food out of the mouth of someone else whom the remaining veteran players may have become attached to and friends with after playing together for years, and as a result weren't going to be too happy to see them replaced by someone they didn't know. Hazing and trials of rookies back then to see if they could prove themselves worthy, and earning a spot on a team before being fully accepted by their teammates, may have been more prevalent than many care to admit. In which case it is wholly possible that Feller was merely being the polar opposite of racist, and treating players like Doby just like he would any other rookies, white or black, riding them and questioning them and their talents before finally accepting them as teammates only after having proven themselves at the ML level. And for all Feller's comments about who he thought was or wasn't talented enough to play MLB, instead of being racist, maybe he really just had a lousy eye for talent after all. Don't remember anyone ever offering him a job as a scout, do any of you?

Feller was outspoken, opinionated, and honest, the kind of person to mean what he said, and say what he meant. But sincerely doubt he was ever a racist. Always thought Feller reminded me of Clint Eastwood's character in the movie Gran Torino.

Here's what Feller had to say when Doby died.

"Larry and I were very good friends," Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, Doby's teammate in Cleveland from 1947-56, said Wednesday night.
"He was a great guy, a great center fielder and a great teammate. He helped us win the pennant in 1948 and the World Series. My thoughts go out to his family," he said.

I dug out my old Bill James Historical Abstract, printed in 1988. Yes, I know its not the most current.

Of the pitchers on his "100 Greatest Players of this Century", he has Feller #8 Career Value behind (in order): Grove, Spahn, W. Johnson, Cy Young, Matty, Seaver, G.C. Alexander, then Bob Feller.

Does not appear Bill James included what may have been for Fellers Military years missed.

Since 1988, I acknowledge pitchers such as Maddux, Randy Johnson and Pedro would have an impact on rankings.

I am thinking of the 2003 volume. He included Paige in that one. I think he had Gibson ahead of Feller, and I forget who else. Probably by that time Clemens.

I don't see how one we can give credit for events which did not happen, only those which did. I can't get him close to the top 10 because I don't see how we can use seasons that did not happen to move him up, or deduct seasons that did actually happen from others.

The best pitcher may be some guy who never made it into the majors. Maybe it was some farm kid in 1877 who chose to become a grocer instead. Maybe it was some guy who never left the sandlots. When we are ranking and talking about the best, what we are really saying and doing is judging the best careers in MLB, because that's the highest level of competition there has been and presents a reasonable dataset, counting those we can reasonably evaluate by some measure beyond the emotional. Could Feller have been a top 10 possible talent? Maybe. Would Feller rank higher if he hadn't missed 4 years? Quite possibly. He might also have suffered a severe injury in 1943 and been out of baseball and a footnote today. One can't really evaluate that which did not happen to give extra points to selected people. I know this is an unpopular and bummer of a view, but I just don't see a way to do it within the confines of reason.

Bob Feller was no racist, and that's the end of it. "Dr. Jones, it's time to ask yourself what you believe."

And if he wasn't, he was way ahead of the rest of the country.

And guess who was managing Cleveland when they signed him, in one of the odd twists of their careers?

I think it was George F. Will who made the point that while Mays might not have had to endure some of the outright racism Robinson did, he was still the target of a more subtle racism; for example, the press apparently was fond of referring to Mays' childlike enthusiasm for the game. Also, Life Magazine (or maybe Time) apparently created a shitstorm by putting Larraine Day on the cover with one arm around Leo (her husband) and the other around Willie.

One more about Willie and the 50s, there was a hit song by the Treniers about him, it's actually a good song but listening to the lyrics from today's POV is just painful.

Yes, but while anything is possible, some outcomes are far more probable than others, no? Don't you think the chances he would have performed at a similar level are much higher than that he would have sustained a career ending injury? I wouldn't go so far as to simply credit anyone with numbers for hypothetical seasons, but I think at some level one can consider the phenomenon in one's assessment.

Certainly I think it is more likely he would have performed well than not. Pitcher arm's dying is not some weird and unusual thing though; it happens all the time and to the majority of pitchers. Give him an extra thousand innings or so and the odds are not tiny. This, what I think is more likely than another scenario, though, is irrelevant. We do not know what would have happened because we are not omniscient. When we look at the numbers to try to determine who had the best MLB careers (what is almost always actually meant when we say "best"), we can only evaluate actual reality, the things that we know have actually happened or the things that it would be more reasonable to think happened than to think that they did not happen. Any argument placing Feller in the top 10 relies on fanfiction, giving credit for years which did not happen, and assuming the best possible outcome of these fictional events in his favor. If the question is "who are your top 10 MLB pitchers who bad luck and for whom events probably most hurt the career value of?", Feller may be a good candidate.

I like Feller. But I see no reasonable way to give credit for years that did not happen. If I make up fantasy years for one player, I can do it for any of them. By the same logic I can conclude the immensely talented Bobby Bonds is a top 10. If things had just gone differently for X, if X had just done things a little different, if luck had been with X, X could have been the best. If only. It's true for all of us, really. If I'd just done X at Y time, I'd be the big winner at Z. If X had never happened to me and my situation would be different, I'd be #1. But reality doesn't work that way.

Huge Feller fan here, ever since meeting him at age 11 outside of the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. My dad pointed him out and sent me with a ball and pen in his direction.
I didn't realize until after I looked at the signature who he was, and it remains a great childhood memory.

I have him as #11 on my list of greatest pitchers, but personally found it much harder to make that list than the outfield players.

Also, pulled these mocked-up stats from an old Net54 thread that represented the best effort to fill in the blanks for military service in WWII.

My Feller focus is going strong for the last 10 years or so. There are a couple of rare cards that are going to be the end of me trying to complete the Master Set, I'm afraid.
And as Peter said, every thread needs a card -- or more.
|

Nice cards, indeed !

As we sit at our keyboards discussing the 'what ifs' and missed years to to service and their place in the inner circle of baseball greatness, I'd bet that Bob and Ted would tell you that they'd make the same decision again to enlist given the circumstances.

That is what elevates them above just great ballplayers.

+1 on that. Well said.

For 10 points, who did Ted fly half his missions with in Korea?

Williams was drafted in January 1942, but appealed to the draft board and got himself reclassified so he wouldn't have to go. It was a public scandal at the time and some sponsors dropped him. He joined the Navy Reserve in May 1942 after the team and Williams saw the writing on the wall. He trained as an aviator and got a commission as a second lieutenant but did not see a combat assignment or deployment. He was released from duty January 1946, but remained on the inactive reserve list. Williams apparently had a deal, or believed he did, where he would never have to actually serve again in exchange for the military being allowed to use his name for recruitment and public relations. He was surprised by his January 1952 call-up for Korea, which was apparently a mistake meant for a different Ted Williams on the list. In Korea he was actively deployed and flew 39 combat missions. No easy assignment.

https://www.historynet.com/ted-williams/

It doesn't seem Williams had any desire to serve, delayed his entry in WWII as long as practicable, and either arranged a deal or thought he had such a deal that he would not in future have to see any real duty either. Once he had to go, he served with courage. This is not a criticism, the entire reason that there was a draft is, of course, that not enough people were willing to sign up and go get shot at. I sure wouldn't. But what he did and what Feller did are very different, and I'm not sure there's any reason in the historical record to think Williams was happy to go and made the choice to do so. Feller was eligible for deferment as well, but instead of using that he enlisted within 48 hours of Pearl Harbor and before it was entirely clear a whole generation was going to be forced under duress to go.

If we assign moral points, Feller gets a lot of 'em.

In an admittedly critical biography, I read that DiMaggio's military service basically consisted of playing ball and entertaining generals.

Did he fly that many with John Glenn? That would be my answer.

Jerry Coleman?

Yep.

It seems to be a thing the last ~25 years where biographers are mostly interested in the downsides of their subjects rather than their virtues. I believe this was true for DiMaggio, and a number of the stars who got drafted (or enlisted shortly before they were due to be drafted). Williams 39 combat missions in Korea is nothing to be ashamed of. As I understand it he was a physical fitness instructor in the army, and bitter about having to play ball for them on base teams. Considering his father was treated as an enemy and had his rights removed as a former Italian, needing to get special permission to travel more than 5 miles from his residence, I can't really fault Joltin Joe here at all. I sure wouldn't want my family treated like an enemy by a government forcing me to throw the baseball around for the entertainment and egos of generals.

Well, you don't like the hagiographic ones either. :)

I feel like there's a middle ground, one that we used to call 'objectivity' and at least pretended to desire :)

IMO Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson is both stunningly well done and fairly objective.

Uhhhhhh, Feller ENLISTED two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, don't believe that was the case for Williams in WWII or the Korean War. Also, Feller could have qualified for deferment and not been subject to the draft and the war due to his father's health and eventual passing from brain cancer in January 1943. Also, Feller initially tried to become a fighter pilot, but failed required hearing tests. And after basic training and then being assigned as a physical education instructor at the Norfolk Naval Base, Feller requested transfer to serve in combat missions because as Feller put it he "wanted to do something besides standing around handing out balls and bats and making ball fields out of coral reefs."

Williams meanwhile was DRAFTED in January of 1942, and initially given a 1-A draft classification. But being his mother's sole means of support, he quickly filed for and received a change in his draft status to a 3-A classification and did not have to enter the service at that time. Williams received a lot of extremely negative public reaction because of this, and as a result Quaker Oats dropped Williams and no longer sponsored him. Eventually on May 22, 1942, Williams joined the Naval Reserve, but remained in the US and playing baseball for all of 1942 for what was to become his first Triple Crown season. He was then called up to active duty in 1943.

And because Williams had chosen the Naval Reserve instead of simply going into active service through the draft back in 1942, he was still technically in the reserves when the Korean War broke out. On January 9, 1952, his name was selected from the inactive reserve list to serve on active duty in the Korean War, for which Williams was livid at his having been recalled.

And as Paul Harvey would say, "Now you know the rest of the story."

My only real objection to Caro's work is the selfish one that he is 86 and we still need the final volume 5, 40 years after the first one came out.

I got my undergraduate and masters degrees in History (don't do that kids, pick STEM or business) in the early 2010's. Objectivity was treated with near-universal open contempt as an old-fashioned Germanic idea; the post-modern notion that objectivity is impossible to achieve (probably true in the literal sense) and thus is silly to aim for was taught to and preached by the students instead. The role of the Historian, as it was taught, was to shape moral opinion and to advance the correct interpretations of the past, that always coincidentally suit certain agendas and worldviews. Got myself into a fair bit of social trouble for declining to accept that the historian as propagandist is the proper way, and that one should withhold moral judgement and simply stick to the facts, the what, and the questions of the why things happened.

I will go flagellate myself now for again drifting with human conversation off the strict OP.

This was all or nearly all pointed out already in post 101.

Yes but even when you're sticking to facts, value judgments invariably come into play on which ones you deem important, how and in what sequence you portray them, and so forth. And once you hit they why questions, I don't see how one can do that fully objectively.

Not sure that really is so critical, and note in my last post what Feller was quoted as saying in regard to duties he was initially assigned to. It does seem to appear that many famous athletes, movie stars, politicians, and the like at the time WWII broke out, and that eventually entered the service, somehow more often than not always seemed to end up with commissions and non-combat duties behind the front lines. Possibly a calculated decision and move on the part of the military and US government for PR purposes and so as to minimize/eliminate negative publicity and reaction to the war should such well-known people have died on the front lines besides 18 to 20something year-olds no one knew outside their own families?

I ignore that person, so did not see it!

It may not be entirely achievable, one may not be fully able to remove themselves from what they see, but one should strive for objectivity, and take a step back. Otherwise, one is doing no more than preaching propaganda, and has strayed away from truth.

I see.

Another reason it's hard to write history is that the writer always knows how things turned out, and there's a huge hindsight bias. In other words a tendency to see events over time as some inevitable progression. I once had a brilliant teacher who asked, what if the 1933 German election wasn't some inevitable step in the rise of Nazism, but at the time was just the product of normal electoral forces?

Very much agreed. This frustrates me every so slightly in so many works. 'That which happened was that which was inevitable'.

I know better than to comment on your teachers query, around an outrage mob ;)

It sort of ties in since we're talking about WW II and FELLER.

Oh it does tie in, but I know where it goes when one tries to address that issue with reason ;)

He was pretty dominant. He led they league in strikeouts every year from the age of 19 to 29 except for the years he lost to the war. But he struggled with control, and he also benefited from being in a pitcher's park his entire career (both league park 2 and Cleveland stadium were pitchers parks). He's a legit first ballot HOFer, but he's not in my top 10. Probably not even in my top 20. Maybe 25th or so for me? He was like an earlier version of Nolan Ryan without the longevity.

Here's my 52. Probably my favorite card of his that I own.

1948 Thom McAn
 

Thom McAn

https://luckeycards.com/phunc1948thommcannfeller.jpg

1941 Premium
 

Photo by Van Oyen

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=33560