BOB FELLER, 92
December 15, 2010
This part comes from a column in the Dec. 9th Idaho State Journal column by Greg Eichelberger "Bob Feller transferred from hospital to hospice." I see in today's alerts that he died yesterday.
Bob feller was one of the last of a dying breed, professional athletes who also served during World War II and the Korean War.
He was born and raised in Van Meter, Iowa and in 1940, had his fast ball clocked at 100 mph in those days before radar guns. They did it by having a motorcycle drive by him at that speed when he released.
He is also a rarity (especially with today's players) in that he played his entire career with the Cleveland Indians where he won 266 games, three no-hitters, 12 one-hitters and 2,581 strike outs.
Impressive stats, but even more striking is the fact that he lost four years in his prime while he proudly served as a gun captain aboard the USS Alabama from 1942 to 1945. He enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor.
Few professional athletes today, other than Pat Tillman from the Arizona Cardinals, have done this.
The Greatest Generation.
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