In view of the outstanding news concerning young Robert Stock going to USC, here is an article today from our local newspaper on Bob Feller who may have written the book on having early success for all time.
I alluded to this in Shep's thread in the Going Pro forum but you have to read this to believe it. Talk about domination at an early age, who knows if anyone will ever break on to the scene in this manner again.
Feller a stellar rookie, then a high school senior
Jim Ingraham JIngraham@News-Herald.com
08/26/2006
Seventy years ago this week, Bob Feller did the unthinkable. The unimaginable. The inconceivable. If somebody did today what Bob Feller did 70 years ago, that person's star power would be so blinding, so radiant, so completely overwhelming it would make LeBron James look like Ramon Vazquez.
Seventy years ago this week, on Aug. 23, 1936, Bob Feller made his first major-league start for the Indians. He was 17 years old. He pitched a four-hit complete game 4-1 win over the St. Louis Browns, striking out 15 batters, which was one shy of the American League record at the time.
At the end of that season - get this - Feller went back to his home in Van Meter, Iowa, for his senior year in high school!
Think about that.
Imagine today, if a high school junior struck out 15 batters in a major-league game.
A high school junior!
How do we even get our arms of comprehension around something like that? It's preposterous, that's what it is. At an age when most kids are trying to decide whether they should part their hair on the left or right side, Feller was dominating major-league hitters.
In 1936, Feller was third on the Indians pitching staff in strikeouts, even though he only pitched in 14 games. Feller that year averaged 11 strikeouts per nine innings - as a high school junior!
Because it happened so long ago, people today forget how great Feller was. How great he was, and how soon he was great. Because he was great, well, instantly.
He came barreling out of those Iowa cornfields, fastball blazing, shattering all the preconceived notions on the accepted order of progression in the baseball universe. Feller was a force of nature. Baseball had never seen anything like his precocious rise and spectacular arrival in the major leagues.
There was nothing like it before Feller, and there's been nothing like it since. He was, and is, an American original. A cultural icon. A party of one.
Three weeks after making his first major-league start for the Indians, Feller matched his age by striking out 17 Philadelphia Athletics, becoming the first, and still the only, player to ever set an American League record before graduating from high school.
Speaking of which, the teenage Feller's star power was of sufficient luster 69 years ago that when he did finally graduate from high school, the graduation ceremonies were broadcast live nationally, on NBC radio. Must-hear radio, for sure.
Of course, by that time Feller already had a job. After graduation, he returned to the Indians, a veteran at age 18. The average age of the nine other pitchers on the Indians staff in 1937 was 31 years old. Feller was 18 - and he led the team in strikeouts.
Indians officials are fond of pointing out that, at the start of this season C.C. Sabathia had more victories than any active major-league pitcher under the age of 26. Sabathia had 69 victories.
At age 22, Feller had already won 107 games. Consider these numbers: 24, 27, and 25. Those were the number of games won by Feller when he was 20, 21, and 22 years old, respectively.
He was, and is, it seems fair to say - how should we term it? - the greatest young pitcher ever. Or maybe the pitcher who became great the fastest. That will be a tough record to break, subjective as it is, because Feller was never not great.
In a start against Detroit in 1938, at the ripe old age of 19, he struck 18 batters, a major-league record that stood for 31 years.
He won 25 games in 1941, missed four years while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then won 26 games his first year back.
The war cost Feller what arguably would have been the four prime years of his career. From the ages of 23 through 26 Feller was not firing fastballs at American League hitters, he was firing shells at Japanese aircraft as the chief of an anti-aircraft gun crew on the USS Alabama.
He averaged 25 wins per year in the three years before joining the Navy. Thus, those four missed years conceivably cost him 100 wins, which would have brought his career total to 366, which would rank fifth on baseball's all-time list.
That he was at his absolute peak when he joined the Navy is evidenced by what Feller did once he got out of the Navy. His first full season back was 1946, and his statistics from that season are ridiculous.
He set four Indians records that year, for strikeouts (348), shutouts (10), complete games (36, more than all the pitchers in the American League Central division combined last year), and innings pitched (371, or 40 more than Sabathia, Bob Wickman, and Bob Howry last year combined). Feller's record in 1946 was 26-15. He led the American League in six categories: appearances, innings pitched, strikeouts, games started, complete games and shutouts.
It is, quite simply, one of the greatest pitching seasons in major-league history, and it came in his first full year back after missing four years due to the war.
He was still only 27 years old.
At age 27, Randy Johnson had 37 career wins, Warren Spahn 44, Nolan Ryan 91, Sandy Koufax 93, Greg Maddux 115, Roger Clemens 116, and Cy Young 132.
At age 27 Bob Feller had 138 wins.
On November 3, the greatest young pitcher in major-league history will turn 88 years old. He still attends Indians games regularly, sitting in his customary seat, which happens to be directly behind mine. That makes it about 75 times more exciting for me than for him. And he knows a little bit about excitement, starting 70 years ago this week.
JIngraham@News-Herald.com
©The News-Herald 2006
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