Place No. 74: Bob Feller Museum; and Place No. 74A: Bob Feller statue and the amazing man himself

The only way you could learn more about Bob Feller than visiting the Bob Feller Museum is to spend a couple minutes with “Rapid Robert” himself.

I’m convinced about that after having the pleasure of meeting Feller a couple times.

Josh Pahigian takes us to Feller’s hometown of Van Meter, Iowa and the Feller Museum as place No. 74 in his “101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out.”

I’ve never been there, so I’ll substitute:

Place No. 74A: Bob Feller statue at Progressive Field, Cleveland

It’s a huge statue just outside the rightfield gate at the Indians’ home, a fine meeting spot before or after a game, as you can tell from Will and I hanging out here in the mid-1990s.

If you’re an autograph collector and you don’t have Feller’s signature, that’s on you and not Feller. He is among the nicest and most prolific signers in the game.

My experiences with Feller were a few years prior to the new stadium and that statue. I was living in Connecticut and working in the Bridgeport Post’s Valley Bureau. Feller had relatives in nearby Waterbury.

Each summer he’d visit, and would be sure to line up a handful of appearances in the area. I’m sure he made a few bucks – and not many, based on the low-for-the-time rates he was charging. But I think Feller just liked meeting fans and talking baseball.

I was a little nervous the first time I met him at a card shop in Seymour, Conn. in 1987. I brought a ball for him to sign, and there were only a handful of other people in the small store.

With little prompting, Feller starting telling me about his amazing Hall of Fame career. After asking my name, he wrote on an 8.5 by 11 sheet with his photo on the front, and flipped it over to show me where it listed all his career achievements.

I heard about the 266 wins and three no-hitters, and how he could have had more of each had he not enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor, spending 44 months serving his country and earning eight battle stars.

He pointed out the line reading “The only pitcher in Major League history to win 20 games or more games before age 21,” then crossed out “only” and replaced it with “first,” since Dwight Gooden had matched the feat.

While proud of all he had done, Feller was humble, too. I handed the Hall of Famer a new ball to sign, and he chose the spot above the Rawlings logo, instead of the sweet spot, where only, managers and the best players sign. I met Johnny Mize a short while later, and he had no qualms writing his name in that spot on that ball.

I met him again the next year at a New Britain Red Sox game, sitting at a table near the concession stands, signing photos and telling stories. He signed everything for everyone and then walked around the stands talking, signing and shaking hands.

He come off a little crusty in interviews these days, not having a lot of love for modern players who don’t approach the game the same way. Don’t expect Feller to ever welcome Pete Rose, Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire into the fraternity with open arms.

But he’s also still throwing in Old-timers Games, too, and he's in his 90s. I think Feller views himself not just as a standard bearer for old school hardball, but as an ambassador for the game. And to that end, few are better than the “Heater from Van Meter.”

Hall of Fame Atrocities

I’m hearing a lot of bellyaching about Rafael Palmiero and whether he should go into the Hall of Fame.

Of course he should, unless you want to exclude every other slugger from the juiced era. Raffy may be the first to actually get caught -- not counting leaked grand jury testimony -- but I think no one at this point will be shocked to find out that every great slugger of this era except Mike Piazza was having, ahem, accidental doses of flaxseed oil.

And besides, there are far, far worse things defiling baseball’s sacred shrine in Cooperstown.

I'm talking, of course, about the complete lack of respect to players belonging to a certain New York team -- and some completely unworthy adulation heaped upon another New York team. Some of these omissions are fixable, and we’d better get to it before it’s too late and our hallowed Hall starts to resemble that tacky truck stop in Canton that football calls its hall. The integrity of the baseball Hall itself is at stake, so let's get busy.


Phil Rizzuto: Why does this plaque exist? Enshrining Scooter alone almost forces the place to change its name to the “Hall of Fame Plus an Unworthy Guy Added When the Veteran’s Committee Relented to the Yankee PR Machine.” If Scooter was so good, why did it take 38 years after he retired to put him in? He won an MVP. Well, Dale Murphy has two, and he’s on the outside. The presence of this plaque among true heroes like Jackie Robinson, Tom Seaver and Ted Williams should allow anyone paying admission to demand a refund. I realize that the Yankees would like us to enshrine all their players, even weasels like Derek Jeter, and they darn near get away with it. But we've got to draw the line somewhere, and that line should have been drawn in front of Scooter.

At least this Scooter fiasco is easily repairable, given a crow bar and a few distracted security guards. Some of these other atrocities will be more difficult to fix. I submit the following:


Reggie Jackson: Why is this man wearing a Yankees cap? Baseball’s all-time strikeout king – as a batter, mind you – played 10 years for the Athletics and won three World Series and an MVP. He played five years for the Yankees, a tenure largely remembered for getting Billy Martin fired a couple times and one evening where some rubber-armed Dodger hurlers playing away from their pitcher-friendly yard allow him to doink a hit or three into the cheap seats in a World Series game. And that’s supposed to get him in Lou Gehrig’s company? And we all know what Reggie does when you ask him to sign your Hall of Fame ball. You can read about it here.


Willie Mays: Why is Willie wearing a San Francisco cap on his plaque? Mays started in New York, and he closed his brilliant career in New York, playing a couple seasons – well, 14 of them – on the West Coast. The Hall could have made both Giants and Mets fans happy by using a New York Giants cap, which, of course, bears a striking resemblance to the Mets cap. But no, Metsies are given the short end of the Hall stick. I’m not a big conspiracy guy, but this happens a lot, as you will soon read.


Yogi Berra: I’m fairly confident Yogi is rightfully wearing a Mets cap on his plaque. You just can’t see it -- another slight! And I can’t blame him for dissing the Yanks after the way the team treated him. Yogi played his entire career in pinstripes, became their manager, took them to the World Series in his first year as skipper and they went and fired the guy. So the Mets brought him over, coaxed him out of retirement for four very important games in 1965 and put him at the helm when fatherly Gil Hodges unexpectedly dies. Of course, Yogi took the Mets to the series, too. Now, look at his plaque: “Managed Yankees to pennant in 1964.” Hello! What are we forgetting? Who’s writing this stuff, Bob Klapisch and his Yankee apologist buddies? I know, I know, Yogi was elected to the Hall in 1972, before the 1973 “You Gotta Believe” team. But that’s what happens when you start adding managerial stuff to plaques when a guy is still managing.

Nolan Ryan: Another clear example of the Mets not getting the love. Ryan pitched five years for the Mets, the same number as he did for the Rangers. His tenure with the Mets is best remembered for a win in the first-ever NLCS and a fine performance in the World Series, earning the only ring of his 27-year career. Meanwhile, his time with the Rangers is remembered for bitch-slapping Robin Ventura. And we have to keep in mind that the Mets made the ultimate act of charity by giving Ryan to a poor, struggling Angels team in search of an identity. For all that, we don’t even get a mention in the text of his plaque. I could forgive the non-reference if he was at least donning that classy interlocking NY on his plaque cap.

Gary Carter: The Expos' abstract logo is hard enough to figure out when it's in color. But in bas relief on a plaque? Forget about it! I can picture a young fan in the not-so-distant future admiring the plaques of baseball's heroes and saying, "Daddy, why does this guy have a moose footprint on his cap? Isn't this the guy who started the Miracle of Game Six with a base hit?" The father will say, "Well, son, it is true that Gary Carter is known as a Met and even wanted to go into the Hall as a Met. But the people running baseball were feeling guilty for screwing up what was a great team in Montreal through a series of inept owners, including the commissioner. Yes, he owned even another team at the time. Sometimes that's called a conflict of interest. But we can read about that on his plaque. I think he's wearing a Yankee cap. Anyway, the guilt-ridden people running baseball wanted proof that the Expos existed, so they strong-armed the Hall into putting the Montreal logo on the cap."

There you go. I have issues with the plaques of Richie Asburn, Warren Sphan, Casey Stengel and Eddie Murray, but you see the devious tend at work here.

Luckily there's still time for us to start pressuring the Hall for the proper cap to be proudly displayed on the plaques of Rickey Henderson, Tom Glavine, Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez.

In other words...

Speaking of Pedro, he's only the latest Mets pitcher to have a no-hitter foiled. The guys at Faith and Fear in Flushing have a great article about the rogue's gallery of dream-killers here.

Every Signature Tells a Story: Reggie Jackson, Punk

Reggie's signature on the Hall of Fame ball, and Willie Mays, too.


It’s my fault. I accept all the blame. I trusted a Yankee.

To be fair, Reggie Jackson had two strikes against him even before he picked up the famed Hall of Fame ball.

His two-run blast in Game Seven of the 1973 World Series crushed the Mets’ bid for a championship. Then he became Mr. Yankee, forcing all of us to have to endure endless stories about those three home runs in the 1977 series against the Dodgers.

But Reggie’s actions at a 1989 baseball card show in New Haven, Conn., were shameful -- even by Yankee standards.

My Hall of Fame ball is a prized baseball possession, second perhaps only to my autograph-filled Mets history book.

Autographs were fairly inexpensive then. Card shows were just starting to pop up as the hobby was taking off. I jumped at chance to meet any Hall-of-Famer who passed through the area and thought it would be fun to have them all sign the same ball.

It’s been signed by Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Duke Snider, Harmon Killebrew, Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin and Johnny Mize.

Sometimes I had to think long and hard about whom would gain entry. Some of the recently retired players were making the rounds and I wanted to limit the ball only to guys who would eventually be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Seaver was a no-brainer, of course. But I wasn’t sure about Steve Garvey, so he didn’t get to sign the ball. I was on the fence about Dave Winfield. He was still a ways from getting his 3,000th hit at the time and didn’t ask him to sign, a mistake in hindsight.

I had no doubts about Pete Rose — did any of us? He remains the only person on the ball who isn’t in the Hall of Fame. Pete signed while he was still managing the Reds, and I remember there two televisions showing football games near the table where he was applying his signature to the parade of balls, photos and bats, which I thought it was odd at the time.

Reggie was appearing at a show where several 1980s Mets were signing, and I thought it would be fine to add another Hall-of-Famer to the ball. He wasn’t enshrined yet, but a safe choice.

And as with the book, I like to shake hands with the player and maybe ask a question or two. Several of the players commented on the ball, treating it respectfully and turning it around to see the other signatures.

It was near the end of Reggie’s time to sign, and the line wasn’t very long as I approached.

I handed Reggie my ball and extended my hand for him to shake. He barely looked up as is signed and refused to shake my hand, leaving it hanging there.

Then Reggie palmed my prized ball and started banging it -- banging it! -- on the table.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” he said, thumping the ball three times, then rolling it down the table. I had to move quickly to catch the ball before it rolled off the side and on to the floor.

I was absolutely stunned. “What a jerk!” I said to no one in particular.

I realize that Reggie was under no obligation to shake my hand, answer a silly question or even make eye contact. I paid for a signature, and that’s what I got.

But to take my prized ball, bang it on the table and roll it away was just horrible.

But I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never, ever trust a Yankee.