Never meet your heroes, they will only disappoint you

a blatantly untrue statement that still occasionally applies

The first Hall of Famer I ever met was at a baseball card shop on NE Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon.

I didn’t know who the guy was, but my mom took us there to get some autographs and meet a famous ballplayer.

My brother and I were huge baseball fans and maybe even bigger fans of baseball cards.

I’m placing this event in the summer of 1985 give or take a year.

“What do you think of that Gooden kid?” the old man asked me. I shrugged. Dwight Gooden was the most dominant pitcher in the game and it wasn’t even close.

“Do you think he can last, just depending on that fastball?” Gooden also had the most dominating curveball of the day, perhaps better than Nolan Ryan.

“I don’t think he throws as fast as some of the guys in my day.”

What does an eight-year-old say to an old man who is bagging on one of his baseball heroes of the time, a man also known as Dr. K?

Nothing more, I figured. I just moved through the line and got my Bob Feller card signed by the man himself.

The Heater from Van Meter (Iowa) was reportedly the hardest thrower in the game for a good portion of his career.

He made his debut for the Cleveland Indians in 1936 as a 17-year-old, signing with the American League club weeks after his junior year at Van Meter High commenced. His catcher the previous summer during the American Legion season was Nile Kinnick who went on to win the 1939 Heisman Trophy and whose name the University of Iowa’s football stadium (Kinnick Stadium) now bears.

On July 19, Feller fanned 15 St. Louis Browns in his first outing, including the first three batters of the game. Three weeks later, “Rapid Robert” set down 17 Philadelphia Athletics.

Feller’s career was interrupted like many big leaguers from 1942-45 by the Second World War. Feller served as a Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy from 1941-45, missing the entire 1942, 1943, and 1944 seasons. He only appeared in 9 games in 1945.

In 1946, Feller led the American League in starts (42) and games pitched (48), compiling a 26-15 record for the Tribe.

As the workhorse for the 1948 Indians, the 29-year-old Feller won 19 ballgames for the World Champs.

For a little more about the 1948 Indians:

Run at thunder

I didn’t know Bob Feller. Met him once. Thought he was a jerk at the time, but something that happened a couple of years ago got me thinking more about Bullet Bob.

Repairing baseball gloves is one of my hobbies and I dabble on the business side of it. I also collect old ball gloves.

I have an old Bob Feller-model Wilson glove from the 1940s given to me by a kind woman on behalf of her late baseball fan husband. She also gave me a bunch of her late husband’s old classic fly-fishing tackle—something I also appreciate.

Having this old Bob Feller glove around the office made me look at the old ballplayer in a different light. I went 30-plus years thinking that Feller was just a bitter old man. But he loved baseball, something which overrides most of my other judgments about people.

The guy pitched in exhibition games in full Cleveland Indians gear into his 90s! He was devoted to the game, whuch I have nothing but respect for.

The great righthander died at age 92 in 2010 due to complications of leukemia.

Sure, he may have been bitter that he didn’t make the kind of money the “kids” in the 1980s did. But he is probably more famous than all but a few of those players to this day.

Feller was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 in the same class as Jackie Robinson.

Robinson’s widow, Rachel, turned 100 years young yesterday, the day of the All-Star Game.

If you like what you read here every day, consider subscribing to get free daily emails in your inbox every day. We do have some paid content we release a few times a month.

Also, please share the emails you find interesting or beneficial to you with your friends and family. Costs you only a mouse click.

Brian O’Leary