Bob Feller Career

[BobC]

Originally Posted by rats60

The bolded is not true. Spahn pitched 4 games in the majors in 1942 at age 21 and was sent back to the minors. Spahn won zero games and had 5.74 ERA in the majors. At the A level, he pitched 33 games going 17-12 with a 1.96 ERA. Spahn went to the military the next year.

Spahn has said the best thing for his major league career was serving in the military. It gave him a chance to mature and he was better equipped to pitch in the majors when he returned at age 25. Ted Williams won the triple crown in 1942 after hitting .406 in 1941. Feller finished 3rd in MVP voting behind DiMaggio and Williams in 1941 before enlisting. Williams and Feller lost prime years to WWII service. Spahn did not. It is only speculation how much Spahn would have even pitched in the majors in 1943-1945 given his 1942 performance.

Rats, thank you, I stand somewhat corrected. I forgot about the stint back to the minors. And I had heard somewhere about Spahn crediting his military service for helping his career as well. But something tells me that because of the type of person he was, and with the talent and ability he had, he would have gotten it figured out long before he turned 25 and been a star pitcher for a few more years in his career had he not lost the years he did. And with 363 career wins and 2,583 career strike outs otherwise, he didn't need 3 or 4 superstar level seasons to reach those 400 win, 3,000 strikeout plateaus.

And that partially missed fourth season I incorrectly attributed to his being in the service, you can probably still count that as he shouldn't have missed it because it is a known fact that in '42 Spahn got into it with then Braves manager Casey Stengel who had ordered him to intentionally throw at a batter, Pee Wee Reese, and in an exhibition game no less. And as I mentioned, being the kind of person he was, Spahn refused to intentionally throw at a batter, especially in an exhibition game, and for that Stengel sent him back to the minors. I believe Stengel was even quoted as admitting at one time much later on that that was the worst managing mistake that he ever made. So the correct statement should be Spahn missed three full seasons to WWII, and much of a fourth to Casey Stengel.