 Note
to 19 to 21 readers: This is the first edition of “19 to 21”
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And, thanks once again to those of you who have already subscribed
for 2011.
19 to 21…
Volume 9, #1, January 4, 2011
An American Hero
 He was an American
Hero almost from the first time he stepped on a major league diamond
at the age of 17, when he struck out eight of nine St. Louis Cardinals
in an exhibition game. He was, in fact, already a legend shortly thereafter,
when he struck out 15 St. Louis Browns in his first American League
start (it's hard to say whether or not the 1935 Brownies qualified
as a major league team, but no matter) and then followed that up by
setting an American League record by fanning 17 Philadelphia Athletics
(they at least had Bob Johnson, Pinky Higgins and Wally Moses on the
team), still in the 1936 season and still prior to his 18th birthday.
Although wilder than the March Hare, he would go on the dominate AL
hitters through the end of the 1941 season, after which he confirmed
his American Hero status by enlisting in the Navy and spending most
of the next four years as an anti-aircraft gun captain on the U.S.S.
Alabama. It was this action, on top of his pitching exploits at such
a young age, that made Bob Feller what he became, an icon. Thus, with
his recent passing, it is not at all surprising that the farm boy
from Van Meter, Iowa, was lionized, and almost deified, as the epitome
of both the Great American Hero, and, maybe even an American Saint
of the nation's secular religion, the National Pastime.
In reality, the truth of Bob Feller the person was much more interesting,
and much more complex. Either almost everyone eulogizing Feller hadn't
read up too much on his history, or chose to ignore some of it, because
there are numerous references in print to some of his less-then-sterling
personal characteristics, especially in regard to his fellow players,
and especially if they happened to be African-American. If these aspects
of Feller's persona were mentioned at all in any of the recent stories
about him, they tended to be glossed over with statements like, "he
was always outspoken," or "he was never afraid to speak
his mind." Very true... the problem was that his brain and his
mouth weren't always closely connected. Actually, most of the recent
Feller tributes focused on his relationship with the fans, which apparently
tended to be pretty good. Without going into extensive detail, since
Feller's Foibles are not the main thrust of this essay, let's just
note a couple of examples...
In his biography of Satchel Paige ("Satchel"), respected
journalist Larry Tye pulls no punches in describing Feller, who, it
should be noted, spent many a fall barnstorming with Paige (in addition
to being his teammate on the 1948 and 1949 Indians)... "The truth
is that Feller did not have a great relationship with many players,
black or white. He had few social skills and no humility." Tye
also recalls a previously well-known Feller interview in 1946 with
“The Sporting News” that everyone else seems to have forgotten,
and wherein Feller said that none of the Negro League players he had
barnstormed with were of major league caliber, not Paige ("maybe
when he was young") and not Jackie Robinson. Feller, to his credit,
quickly back-tracked, and ate those words in '47 and '48, when Robinson
was the Rookie of the Year and when Paige went 6-1 to help lead the
Indians to the AL pennant.
Another statement on the Feller persona came from Donald Dewey and
Nicholas Acocella in "The New Biographical History of Baseball,"
wherein they presaged Tye's comments by noting that Feller had a,
"personal venality that would never qualify the righthander as
Mr. Charm... although one of baseball's more articulate players for
his era, Feller also had a long suit in crankiness against what he
perceived as underappreciation of his talent or overappreciation of
the skills of others. Nowhere was this clearer than in his constant
criticisms of the significance of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color
barrier in 1947."
OK, so despite the Halo Effect concomitant with his passing, Feller
wasn't perfect. The more interesting question for the historian is
the unanswerable one... how good would Feller have been, and what
sort of numbers would he have piled up, if he hadn't won eight battle
citations in World War II, and missed almost four full seasons in
what looked to be his prime? As is the case with the subject of his
personality, there are two sides to argue; one, that the war cost
him dearly, and two, that his missing almost four years might have
actually extended his career.
Feller's actual career can be broken down into four phases -- Breaking
In (1936 and 1937); Stardom (1938-1941 and 1946-1948); Decline (1949-1953);
and Hanging On (1954-1956). Statistically, they average out yearly
as follows...
Wins IP K K/9
36/37 7 106 113 9.6
38-48 22.6 313 245 7.0
49-53 14.4 215 96 4.0
54-56 5.7 94 34 3.3
Looked at simplistically, and just extrapolating his missing years
(the 1942 to 1944 seasons, plus all but 72 innings in 1945) without
any further thought, you can come up with some impressive numbers.
In the three years before he went into the Navy, the 20, 21 and 22
year old Feller won 76 games and struck out 767 batters, averages
of 25 wins and 255 Ks. And, when he came back at the end of 1945,
he was still, after almost four years of being hors de combat, able
to strike out 7.4 batters per nine innings and post an ERA+ of 130
with five wins for 72 innings -- figures both better than the corresponding
ones for his 1941 season. And, since he then proceeded to strike out
348 batters in 371 innings for 26 wins and a 151 ERA+ in 1946, it
seems safe to say that his missing years probably would have been
as good as those that came immediately beforehand.
Taking this simplistic (and possibly conservative) approach, we'll
then fill in the blanks for his missing 1942 to 1944 seasons, and
give him a full 1945. If Feller had pitched straight through from
1941 to 1945, his Stardom period, his peak years, might have looked
like this...
Wins Strikeouts
1939 24 246
1940 27 261
1941 25 260
1942* 24 275
1943* 27 235
1944* 24 251
1945* 25 259
1946 26 348
1947 20 196
1948 19 164
The yearly totals for 1942 to 1945 are arbitrary -- no one is THAT
consistent -- all that really matters is that the added years average
out to 25 wins and 255 Ks per season. For 1945, we're giving Feller
20 extra wins and 200 extra strikeouts over what he actually accomplished
(five wins and 59 Ks). In this alternate universe, the rest of Bob
Feller's career through 1956 is the same and, instead of finishing
with 266 wins and 2581 strikeouts, he ends up with... 361 wins and
3,542 strikeouts. That's just if he maintained the average performance
of his first three years of stardom for the next four years, and that's
also Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove territory (as in the debate for
the best pitcher, ever.)
But... could he have done that? Or, more exactly, even if he had won
95 more games and struck out 965 more batters from 1942 to 1945, would
the rest of his career have been the same? Ah, there's the question.
And there would seem to be several indicators that would lead one
to believe he would have flamed out even earlier than he did in real
life. And, it WAS a flameout of cosmic proportions... something you
also don't see commonly mentioned in discussions about Bob Feller,
maybe because, well, he WAS Bob Feller, American Hero. The facts,
however, are clear, as are the statistics. Although he had a few good
years after that Mt. Everest in 1946 (notably 1947, 1950 and 1951),
he was never great, he was never even the same pitcher afterwards.
His decline really started gradually with the 1947 season, and became
a downhill slope in 1949. For example, look at his strikeout rates.
Having averaged between 6.8 and 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings from
1938 to 1945 (he actually fanned more than that in cameo appearances
in '36 and '37), he blew away 8.4 batters per nine in 1946, and then
fell off to 5.9 in 1947 and 5.3 in 1948. And then the bottom really
fell out. Here's the record...
1938 7.8
1939 7.5
1940 7.3
1941 6.8
1945 7.4
1946 8.4
1947 5.9
1948 5.3
1949 4.6
1950 4.3
1951 4.0
1952 3.8
1953 3.1
1954 3.8
1955 2.7
1956 2.8
At the same time his strikeout rate was falling, so were his innings
pitched. Although he still was over 200 IP in 1949, 1950 and 1951,
his totals steadily declined from '51 on; 250, 192, 176, 140, 83,
58. In case you haven't figured this out yet, Feller's Hanging On
phase began in a season when he was 35 years old... an age at which
Jamie Moyer, for instance, was just getting started. And his last
major league pitch was thrown when he was just 37 years old. Feller's
Flameout is not unprecedented, several very young (i.e., teenage)
and very good major league pitchers were toast by the age of 35 (or
even, in many cases, younger)... Dwight Gooden, Gary Nolan, Charles
Albert Bender, Wally Bunker, Smoky Joe Wood, Larry Dierker, even Amos
Rusie, if you care to go back that far. (One exception here is Bert
Blyleven, which may be one reason why he's likely to be announced
as one of the newest members of the Hall of Fame this week.)
In Feller's case, this flameout took place starting just three complete
seasons after he took off from pitching for almost four years. Even
though he didn't throw a professional pitch at ages of 23, 24 and
25 (and most of his age 26 season as well), Feller still burned out
young. What might have happened if he'd thrown another 1200 innings
between 1942 and 1945? (He'd averaged 320 IP per season in 1939, 1940
and 1941.) Would he have burned out four years sooner, say after the
1948 season? No one can say, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to predict
the following win pattern for Feller in still another universe...
1941 25
1942 24
1943 27
1944 24
1945 25
1946 26
1947 20
1948 19
1949 10
1950 13
1951 4
1952 0
Is it unrealistic to propose that Feller could have been totally washed
up at the age of 32? Not if you go by the careers of the young flamethrowers
mentioned above. Gooden threw his last major league pitch at 35, but
none of the rest lasted past 33, when Bender finished up with the
Phillies (although he pitched a couple of innings for the White Sox
eight years later.) Dierker was 31 in his last season with the Cards,
and early fireballers Rusie and Wood were 30. Gary Nolan was 29, and
Wally Bunker just 26. No, it's not far-fetched to "end"
Feller's career at 32. If, in effect his age 34 through age 37 seasons
became his age 30 through 33 seasons, he then would have won 299 games
with about 3120 strikeouts -- still excellent, but no longer numbers
that elevate him into the Walter Johnson/Lefty Grove debate.
What caused Feller's Flameout? That's even more speculative, but the
signs point towards that 1946 season. As Indians owner Bill Veeck
noted, they were pushing Feller very hard that year to set the AL
strikeout record, partly because Indian fans didn't have much else
to root for in 1946. And he was pushed very hard. While having just
taken almost four years off might have rested his right arm, it might
have "rusted" it a bit too. Imagine the strain of pitching
371 innings in 1946, after having pitched exactly 72 in the previous
four years.
Except, Feller didn't pitch 371 innings in 1946, because, in the 30
days after the season ended, he went on one of those barnstorming
tours with the Satchel Paige All-Stars (read, the Negro League All-Stars)
and threw another 54 innings against competition as good as that he
faced during the regular season. Add it up... between early April
and late October 1946, Bob Feller pitched 425 innings! The last pitcher
prior to 1946 to throw more than that against this level of competition
was Ed Walsh in 1908, and only Walsh, Jack Chesbro (both spitballers)
and Iron Man McGinnity (who threw underhanded) topped 425 IP in the
20th Century.
Bob Feller is said to have injured a knee in 1947 (then how did he
still pitch 299 innings that year), and that might well have slowed
him down. But, it seems more likely that his incredible workload in
1946 (along with World War II) was more to blame for him having to
settle for being a two-time American Hero, and not the greatest pitcher
of all time.
-- John Shiffert
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