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Four More Years

© Harold Friend

Bob Feller was once seventeen years old. Weren't we all? The difference is that most of us didn't start 8 games for the Cleveland Indians when we were seventeen. For Feller, it was a very good year (sorry).

Feller started his first game for the Cleveland Indians on August 23, 1936 against the St. Louis Browns, striking out 15 on his way to a 4-1 victory. At the time, the 15 strikeouts were one short of Rube Waddell's single game American League record and two short Jay Hannah Dean's major league record. Feller allowed only six hits and of course, since it was 1936, he pitched a complete game.

It wasn't immediate success for Feller, and in his first start at Yankee Stadium on September 1, before a crowd of 12,000 fans (that's not a typo), he lasted only one inning. Feller started out fast by striking out Frank Crosetti with what John Drebinger, the great baseball writer, described as "blinding speed...and a sharp breaking curve as well, though his delivery looks a bit cramped and he has yet to acquire a free striding motion."

Jack Saltzgaver beat out an infield hit but Feller retired Mr. DiMaggio, who was finishing a rookie season in which he would hit .323 with 29 homeruns, bringing up Lou Gehrig, who was a pretty good hitter. Feller walked Gehrig, then George Selkirk, and then Jake Powell, the latter getting credit for an RBI when his walk forced in Saltzgaver with the Yankees' first run.

Feller was young, inexperienced, and flustered. Tony Lazzeri singled home two runs with Powell going to third. Feller then balked Powell home with Lazzeri moving to second. Joe Glenn doubled home Tony, bringing up pitcher Vernon Gomez, whom Feller struck out. The Indians pinch hit for Feller in the top of the second inning.

But the 17 year old rookie was, after all, Bob Feller. In his next start against his friends, the St. Louis Browns, Feller struck out 10 as the Indians won, 7-1, and then on September 13, Feller broke Waddell's American League record and tied Dean's major league record by striking out 17 Philadelphia Athletics. Feller allowed only two hits as the Indians won, 5-2.

At the age of 17, Feller won 5 and lost 3 with a 3.34 ERA and 76 strikeouts in 62 innings. His next two seasons were good but he was not yet the real Bob Feller. In 1937 he won 9 games and in 1938 he won 17 games and then in 1939, at the age of 20, Feller won 24 and lost 9 with 246 strikeouts. The following season he was 27-11 with 261 strikeouts and that was followed with a 25-13 record and 260 strikeouts. Then reality set in. On October 22, 1941, Feller was classified 1A.