Bob Feller Career

[bbcard1]

Gotta share my Feller story...in the late 1970s...I'd guess 1978...he came to Watt Powell Park in Charleston WV. For the sum of $2 you could take a cut off Rapid Robert...remember he had to be in his 60s then. All proceeds benefitted the American Cancer Society. It was the pregame to a minor league baseball game. I blooped a single over second finishing 1-1 against hall of famers. After he took a shower and signed autographs for anyone who wanted.

Late in his life he was one of the first victims of cancel culture that I recall. He said something that was probably slightly behind the time and some POS announcer accused him of being a racist. I don't think any serious study of Feller's life would support that.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by bbcard1

Gotta share my Feller story...in the late 1970s...I'd guess 1978...he came to Watt Powell Park in Charleston WV. For the sum of $2 you could take a cut off Rapid Robert...remember he had to be in his 60s then. All proceeds benefitted the American Cancer Society. It was the pregame to a minor league baseball game. I blooped a single over second finishing 1-1 against hall of famers. After he took a shower and signed autographs for anyone who wanted.

Late in his life he was one of the first victims of cancel culture that I recall. He said something that was probably slightly behind the time and some POS announcer accused him of being a racist. I don't think any serious study of Feller's life would support that.

Yes, don't know the details of that particular incident/story, but find it highly doubtful Feller would ever deliberately and intentionally make racist comments. In fact, Feller was the main force after the war behind the 1946 barnstorming and exhibition game tour where a white, ML all-star team with the likes of himself, Musial, Rizzuto, and others went across the country right after the WS ended and played 35 games over 27 days in 17 different states across the country and British Columbia. Their opponent was a team of Negro League All-Stars headed by Satchell Paige, and the likes of Buck O'Neil, Quincy Trouppe, Hank Thompson, and others. And to make it all work, Feller did something else unprecedented and never done in baseball before. Feller charted two DC-3 planes to fly everyone to all the games for the whole barnstorming tour. He even had them paint "Bob Feller's All-Stars" on the outside of the planes. Apparently the tour was a huge success, everyone shared in the profits, and supposedly most everyone made more in that one month than they'd made over the entire baseball season that year. All the players apparently got along great, and Feller referred to and thought of the Negro League players as friends. Doesn't sound or come across as a racist type person to me.

Oh, and because the chartered planes and constant flying were not things ML teams were doing yet, at this time MLB baseball travel was still primarily by train, some team owners were scared and didn't want to risk their star players getting injured or killed in a plane crash. As a result, supposedly Hal Newhouser and Ted Williams were each paid $10,000 by their respective team owners to not go on the tour. Always thought that a bit ironic and funny in Williams' case as he served as a pilot in WWII and the Korean War.

This is another thing that could also be posted in the "It only ever happened once........" thread over in the Water Cooler - All Sports Talk forum.

[Yoda]

Forgive me if the subject has already been hashed over, but what were Ruth's batting stats when he pitched for Boston?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Yoda

Forgive me if the subject has already been hashed over, but what were Ruth's batting stats when he pitched for Boston?

First off John, did you know that when asked about facing all other pitchers, Ted Williams said Allie Reynolds makes him start thinking about facing him 24 hours before he does so, but that Bob Feller had him thinking about facing him a full three days before he actually did. Feller was that good and got into his head that much more than any other pitcher he ever faced apparently.

And now that I've fulfilled my obligation to discuss Bob Feller and his career in some manner in this post, I can now not be rude and respond to your question, brought up from earlier conversations in this thread surrounding some discourse others may feel is inappropriately off-topic, whatever their warped, myopic or mistaken reasoning.

For Ruth, he played his first six seasons in Boston, primarily as a pitcher. During that time his batting stats were as follows:

G 391
PA 1332
AB 1110
R 202
H 342
2B 82
3B 30
HR 49
RBI 224
SB 13
CS 0
BB 190
SO 184
BA .308
OBP .413
SLG .568

And his offensive WAR just from batting over these six seasons with Boston was 19.2, with the biggest contribution coming in his last year in Boston, 1919, when he played in a total of 130 games that year, only appearing in 17 of those games as a pitcher, and putting up a 9.1 WAR. Commensurately for pitching, for those same six seasons he put up a pitching WAR of 20.5, with 1916 being his best when he posted an 8.8 pitching WAR.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BobC

First off John, did you know that when asked about facing all other pitchers, Ted Williams said Allie Reynolds makes him start thinking about facing him 24 hours because he does so, but that Bob Feller had him thinking about facing him a full three days before he he did. Feller was that good and got into his head that much that.

And now that I've fulfilled my obligation to discuss Bob Feller and his career in some manner in this post, I can now not be rude and respond to your question, brought up from earlier conversations in this thread surrounding some discourse others may feel is inappropriately off-topic, whatever their warped, myopic or mistaken reasoning.

For Ruth, he played his first six seasons in Boston, primarily as a pitcher. During that time his batting stats were as follows:

G 391
PA 1332
AB 1110
R 202
H 342
2B 82
3B 30
HR 49
RBI 224
SB 13
CS 0
BB 190
SO 184
BA .308
OBP .413
SLG .568

And his offensive WAR just from batting over these six seasons with Boston was 19.2, with the biggest contribution coming in his last year in Boston, 1919, when he played in a total of 130 games that year, only appearing in 17 of those games as a pitcher, and putting up a 9.1 WAR. Commensurately for pitching, for those same six seasons he put up a pitching WAR of 20.5, with 1916 being his best when posted an 8.8 pitching WAR.

Yeah 1919 was his Ohtani year. Oh no, I just brought up a MODERN player on this thread. Back to Feller, here is a card.

[G1911]

Technically, I think it is okay to mention a modern player, because the direct query in the OP is about Feller's rating, and thus necessitates the invocation of other names in order to establish Feller's empirical rank, as long as that rank aligns with his exact opinion, otherwise we will be called mentally disabled again. As long as the central question is Feller's rank and the modern player is used to justify a correct position on that issue, it should be within the tight constraints of not having that terrible foible of human conversation, of evolving.

Anyways here's a Feller I got for $5 a few years ago. It's one of the super prints in this issue but a great pose and career contemporary card for dirt cheap. This and the 1956 Topps are his best 'bang for the buck' cards in my eyes.

Disclosure: I have no clue what my blood pressure is today.

[howard38]

Originally Posted by BobC

Yes, don't know the details of that particular incident/story, but find it highly doubtful Feller would ever deliberately and intentionally make racist comments. In fact, Feller was the main force after the war behind the 1946 barnstorming and exhibition game tour where a white, ML all-star team with the likes of himself, Musial, Rizzuto, and others went across the country right after the WS ended and played 35 games over 27 days in 17 different states across the country and British Columbia. Their opponent was a team of Negro League All-Stars headed by Satchell Paige, and the likes of Buck O'Neil, Quincy Trouppe, Hank Thompson, and others. And to make it all work, Feller did something else unprecedented and never done in baseball before. Feller charted two DC-3 planes to fly everyone to all the games for the whole barnstorming tour. He even had them paint "Bob Feller's All-Stars" on the outside of the planes. Apparently the tour was a huge success, everyone shared in the profits, and supposedly most everyone made more in that one month than they'd made over the entire baseball season that year. All the players apparently got along great, and Feller referred to and thought of the Negro League players as friend. Doesn't sound or come across as a racist type person to me.

Oh, and because the chartered planes and constant flying were not things ML teams were doing yet, at this time MLB baseball travel was still primarily by train, some team owners were scared and didn't want to risk their star players getting injured or killed in a plane crash. As a result, supposedly Hal Newhouser and Ted Williams were each paid $10,000 by their respective team owners to not go on the tour. Always thought that a bit ironic and funny in Williams' case as he served as a pilot in WWII and the Korean War.

This is another thing that could also be posted in the "It only ever happened once........" thread over in the Water Cooler - All Sports Talk forum.

Feller was doing a phone interview around 2005 & passed a comment about Caribbean players not knowing the rules. The interviewer pressed him for examples but Feller wouldn't or couldn't elaborate. Things became contentious & Feller threatened to hang up whereupon the interviewer said something like "Go ahead you racist!".

[BobC]

Originally Posted by howard38

Feller was doing a phone interview around 2005 & passed a comment about Caribbean players not knowing the rules. The interviewer pressed him for examples but Feller wouldn't or couldn't elaborate. Things became contentious & Feller threatened to hang up whereupon the interviewer said something like "Go ahead you racist!".

Was not aware of and never heard that before. If anything, not sure how that is necessarily considered racist either. I know that back in his day Feller wanted to play Winter ball in Cuba at one point I believe, and apparently got into it with then baseball commissioner Happy Chandler about a rule supposedly not allowing US ML ballplayers to play in Cuba, but Latin/Carribean ML ballplayers could. That is the only questionable Latin/Carribean player situation I've ever heard of him being involved with.

For the heck of it, did a little online searching and found some stuff on the issue after all. Seems he was doing a live radio interview over the phone at 86 years of age with someone on a small local radio station in Iowa I believe, possibly trying to make a name for themself and generate ratings. Guessing Feller came across as rude/obnoxious/opinionated because the a--hole interviewing him either wouldn't shut up and let him finish, or just pushed what Feller was possibly not saying in the nicest, sweetest, and most kiss-ass PC way possible was therefore proof he was racist. Seems Feller said Latin players first coming here didn't know or understand all the rules and that not speaking good English maybe didn't help in their understanding, or something along those lines. Seems to me Feller was more or less merely stating facts about differences between MLB rules and exactly how they play baseball here in the states, and then how that can differ with the way the game's played in other parts of the world, and that language issues and misunderstandings can further complicate those differences and learning. I can understand Feller being pissed if this guy then tried pushing him as a racist.

And another thing many may not know about Feller, in 1956 he became the inaugural President of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a position in which he represented all ML players of all ethnicities. I somehow doubt he would have been elected to such a position if he actually was a racist.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by howard38

Feller was doing a phone interview around 2005 & passed a comment about Caribbean players not knowing the rules. The interviewer pressed him for examples but Feller wouldn't or couldn't elaborate. Things became contentious & Feller threatened to hang up whereupon the interviewer said something like "Go ahead you racist!".

On Larry Doby's first day in the Major Leagues with the Indians, several teammates refused to shake Doby's hand. Bob Feller is believed to be one of those teammates.

However, in an interview with Larry Doby in 1979, Doby says that Feller changed for the better, even if it took him some time (starting at 1:30:19).
https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/...han068_ohm.xml

I think the accusations some have made in the press that Feller was racist are overblown.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

On Larry Doby's first day in the Major Leagues with the Indians, several teammates refused to shake Doby's hand. Bob Feller is believed to be one of those teammates. However, in an interview with Larry Doby in 1979, Doby says that Feller changed for the better, even if it took him some time

For me, who witnessed so much discrimination, including separate facilities, etc., in my youth, that's the test. As the country changed, did someone go along with that change, or try to fight it, as so many are still trying to do today? From what I've heard, Bob Feller met that test.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

On Larry Doby's first day in the Major Leagues with the Indians, several teammates refused to shake Doby's hand. Bob Feller is believed to be one of those teammates.

However, in an interview with Larry Doby in 1979, Doby says that Feller changed for the better, even if it took him some time (starting at 1:30:19).
https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/...han068_ohm.xml

I think the accusations some have made in the press that Feller was racist are overblown.

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.

[Peter_Spaeth]

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.