How I became a Bob Feller fan

Here’s my “I met Bob Feller” story:
I was maybe 12 or 13, I don’t really remember exactly how old I was, but Feller was holding an autograph session at the Findlay Village Mall. (I assume it was called that even then.)
It was before all the renovations that added the Elder-Beerman and the whole corridor to the rear if the mall leading to it. For those of you who remember these things, that whole area was still a K-Mart store with a little lunch counter.
The JC Penney store was still in the front of the mall (about where the Radio Shack is today) instead of in the back, and right across from it was a little craft store of some kind that sold baseball cards. I used to go in there and look at them in the glass counter. I may have bought a couple, but I remember looking at them a lot.
I have no idea if that store had anything to do with Feller coming to the mall that day, but that’s where he set up for the autograph session.
My dad took me. He had seen an advertisement for Feller’s appearance in one of the the papers.
I don’t think I really knew who Feller was then, only that he was a Hall-of-Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.
I am pretty sure my dad knew who he was, because they were about the same age, and, even though my dad was not a big baseball fan until I came along, he probably remembered the name from when Feller was still pitching.
To be signed, I brought with me the book “Pitching” by Bob Shaw. It’s one of the better “How-To” books about its subject, and may have been among the first of its kind. It explained the proper form for pitching, how to throw various pitches and lots of other related things like exercises that would help strengthen the muscles needed for pitching.
(To that end, Shaw recommended staying away from weight training because it could leave you muscle bound and inflexible. Hey. it’s an old book.)
I pretty much knew the book backwards and forwards. It was dog-eared from reading it so many times.
I remember standing in line for a while. I couldn’t tell you if it was a long time. I was wearing my first, really beat up Cleveland Indians hat. It was one of the blue ones with the old block “C” in red on the front. Like many hats of the day, the back was made out of a mesh and it had plastic snaps to adjust the size.
Feller was seated at the table, chatting with everyone who came by. He was very friendly and talkative and engaging.
My dad said he seemed like an old farmer, which made for easy conversation with all the northwest Ohioans standing in line. (Later I learned he had, rather famously, grown up on a farm in Van Meter, Iowa.)
When I made it up to where Feller was sitting, I handed him my book.I remember him being very friendly, and smiling and greeting us plesantly.
One of the first things he said when I handed him my book was, “So, did you read this book?”
Which prompted me, I am sure, to give him the dumb look of all dumb looks. Of course I had! Couldn’t he see how beat up it was?
I told him I had read it lots of times.
He approved my answer and signed the front page “Best wishes, Bob Feller.”
As we stood there, someone handed him a baseball to sign. He told the crowd he was glad he had a short name so it fit on the baseball. He was glad he didn’t have a name like Connie Mack, the former Philadelphia Athletics manager.
Mack’s full name, Feller said, was “Cornelius Aloysius McGillicuddy” and he could never have fit that on one baseball. You’d need a basketball for that one, he said.
Feller added, however, Mack’s real middle name wasn’t Aloysious. He didn’t know what it was, but still would have been too long to fit on a baseball.
Naturally, I looked it up when I got home, and Mack’s full name really was Cornelius McGillicuddy.”
(Interestingly enough, Mack managed the A’s throughout most of Feller’s career, which lasted from 1936-1956. Mack was the owner/manager of the As from 1901-1954. He stopped managing in 1950 at age 87.)
My dad and I went home happy that we’d met Feller and found him to be a fine gentleman.
One post script: We saw Feller pitch in an old-timer’s game later that year.
Feller would have been in his early 60s at the time, and I remember my dad commenting about how spry and fit he still looked when he pitched.
Indians broadcaster Herb Score also threw a few pitches in that game, and I remember my dad noting, and me agreeing, that Feller seemed to have retained more of his youthful athleticism that Score, who was 15 years younger.
The game was all the more enjoyable because we could say we knew one of the players.
One more post script: I was moved to tears (quietly, though) this past opening day in Cleveland when Feller threw out the first pitch of the 2010 season to Sandy Alomar.
Feller left the mound to a thundering ovation and tipped his cap to the fans.
I think I could have skipped the rest of the game and gone home happy just to have seen that.
Feller strode out to the mound at age 92, wound up and delivered a pitch to home plate. Some guy sitting in front of me was amazed that, at Feller’s age, he still went to the mound and threw the pitch from the pitching rubber.
I thought to myself the guy who said that didn’t know Feller very well. Or course he could still pitch from the mound. If he couldn’t, I don’t think he’d have even gone out there.
If that’s to be his last big moment in Cleveland in front of the fans, he left on a good note, and I am very happy I was there to see it.
I thought at the time it was almost as though he was handing off the reigns of being the senior statesman to a younger generation of Indian stars.
I don’t suppose Feller thought of it that way. I’d imagine he was just the greatest Cleveland Indian ever throwing out another ceremonial first pitch to start the season and would do it again next year if asked.
But, even though Feller probably has thrown out more than a few first pitches with Alomar catching, now it seems even more like a de facto generational handoff.
Maybe someone on the Indians will get the symmetry, and let Alomar, one of the greatest and most popular Indians from recent memory, throw out the first pitch next year.
And, yes, before you ask, I still have the book Feller signed. And, yes I still pull it out and read it now and again.