Feller is likely the name most associated with the Cleveland Indians and was a national celebrity with his entry into the major leagues in the radio age.Looking at the numbers and considering the loss of three years of his career to World War II,Feller has a case to be perhaps the greatest righthanded pitcher ever.
Much is made of the years that Ted Williams missed due to war and justifiably so,but the pre-World War II version of Bob Feller ranks with the Sandy Koufax run as being perhaps the most dominant pitcher in the history of the game.
Bob Feller's stats speak for themselves,although the 3 no hitters and 12 one hitters are pretty amazing and his 266 wins would have certainly exceeded the 300 mark had there been no WWII.
In an era that we live in that has inflated numbers due to weaker clubs in the expansion age,the numbers of the early days of the game sometime pale in comparison.
That is something that needs to be addressed,although the pitching numbers are not as vulnerable to attack than hitting numbers,no hitters,etc seem to come at a higher rate than they did in the time of Bob Feller.
Bob Feller could be terse and reportedly grumpy as this famous SI article shows,but as my brother writes in his post on Feller,that often is just the way of males from that generation.
Gruff doesn't always mean,well mean and often in dealing with people from that time,that type of experience tends to happen.
I'll prefer to remember Feller as the "feller" with the extraordinarily high leg kick and better yet as "Mr.Indian"....
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