My father, Bob Feller and me. June 13, 1993.
I know tomorrow’s post is going to poke fun at people who died this year, but one recent death that I want to write about in a positive way is that of Hall Of Fame baseball player Bob Feller. Feller died last night at the age of 92 following a recent bout with pneumonia. He pitched for the Cleveland Indians for 18 years, won 266 games and struck out over 2,500 batters. He won 20 games in a season six times during his career while pitching three no-hitters and 12 one-hitters. Simply put, he was one of the game’s greatest pitchers. And for one very enlightening, very lucky day during my elementary school years I got to hang out with Mr. Feller.
My father is an avid baseball card and sports memorabilia collector. When my sister and I were younger, he had this really depraved (but somehow adorable) habit of sending letters to ballplayers asking for autographs. The only thing was, he would sign them as my sister and I. And all the stories in the letters were interchangeable, so for Duke Snider he would write, “I play center field and my daddy calls me little Duke,” and for Roger Clemens I was a pitcher and my dad called me “Little Rocket.” He liked to share his obsession with family and friends, so when a large room in a nearby community building opened up, dad decided to curate a baseball card show. This was in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when people still collected baseball cards, and card shows were weekly events held in towns all across the state. In order to draw in a larger crowd and create some buzz, he knew he needed to have a ballplayer on hand to sign autographs. I don’t remember how or why he chose Mr. Feller, but he agreed to fly to New Jersey for the day to appear at the event.
I remember driving to pick him up at Newark Airport, and excitedly holding up the little “B. Feller” card I made on our computer and waiting for him to appear in the baggage claim area. I was like the world’s smallest limousine driver. He seemed nice enough when he introduced himself, but something about the flight had angered him, so I was nervous and maybe a little scared at first. A few minutes later as when loaded his bags into my father’s car we noticed a parking ticket tucked behind the windshield wiper. Before my dad could launch into one of his classic tirades, Mr. Feller grabbed it from his hand and promised that he would pay it.
I spent the day seated next to Bob, watching him sign autographs for hundreds of people, taking pictures, showing kids how to grip a baseball, and listening intently as he told me a seemingly endless number of stories about what it was like growing up on a farm, his playing days, and the years after his retirement. When he signed cards and balls for kids he always included the date of his Hall-Of-Fame induction or the date of his second no-hitter. I was barely ten years old so a lot of the specifics have long faded from memory, but one vivid recollection I have is that he talked about how he wanted to start his own trading card company. Instead of having sports stars on the cards, he wanted to feature heavy equipment and agricultural machinery. Like tractors. He had brought some prototype cards with him and he gave me one. As a boy I liked things like tractors, crawlers and cranes so I liked the different pictures.
Later in his life Mr. Feller was in the press a few times for things he said that weren’t very “PC,” but his legacy as a baseball player and the day we spent together had already solidified my opinion of the man. Later in my life, I would recall Feller occasionally. As I drove across the country a few years ago I passed through his hometown in Iowa. There’s a sign on the highway alerting travelers to the place of his birth, and I smiled as I remembered the day I spent with him. When I read of his death this morning, I was saddened by the news. But seeing his name and reading his biography brought a smile to my face because I know how lucky I am to have such a unique memory of a legendary sports star.
