Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
His strikeouts really fell off dramatically after 1946, like he lost a foot on his fastball or something.
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Mr. Spaeth, there is actually a very plausible answer and explanation to your question, given on the Wikipedia site for Bob Feller, and apparently coming directly from Feller himself. In the last paragraph of the "Return to Cleveland (1945 - 1948)" section on Feller it talks of him pitching in a game in Philly against the Athletics on June 13, 1947, and in the 4th inning after already accumulating 10 strikeouts, him falling off the mound made slippery by rain, and injuring his back as a result. The article quotes Feller as saying, "My fastball was never the same after that.". The fact that that Feller can pinpoint the exact time, date, and place it happened is pretty telling. His record going forward you pointed out speaks for itself, and adds another big "What if?" to his career. It also raises a further question as to would today's modern medical advances have been able to do something about his injury and restored him to his pre-injury condition and health.
And sincerely hope this is on point and topic enough for the usual forum trolls. I didn't know that in talking about how certain aspects of a player's career compared to and impacted or were interwoven into that of other players was considered so off topic, or how rude one should be lest anyone acknowledge and respond to a slightly off topic or tangential question which was asked. I actually thought there was a lot of good and informative info and conversation going on that would be enlightening and entertainting to a lot of others. I typically have those troll types on ignore, but then others go quoting them and their BS shows up anyway. And if there is anything posted in a thread that could ever be called more "off-topic", it is making a post and just complaining about others in the thread being off-topic. At least my post calling out such a complainer actually does also speak to Feller and his career.
