R.I.P bob feller 1918-2010

i'm a little late in posting this but i've been under the weather since learning of this wednesday night. i'm not going to sit here and try and write some fabulous piece on who i believe was one of the top five living americans. i'll leave that up to the great joe posnanski.

but i do have to let you know when browsing a little used book shop some years ago, i found on the shelf his memoir now pitching with bob feller. i opened it to the title page and realized it was signed by the true hall of famer himself. in later years i would come to realize that signed stuff by him was LESS rare than unsigned, but that didn't matter. a baseball nerd had found him a diamond. below is an article from today listing his major accomplishments from the cleveland's plain dealer.

Bob Feller: A timeline of heroic service and a great Cleveland Indians career
Published: Friday, December 17, 2010, 5:28 AM Friday, December 17, 2010
By Mike Peticca, The Plain Dealer

Bob Feller
(above) warming up during the 1940 season, when he went 27-11 as a 21-year-old.
Cleveland, Ohio -- It's all but impossible to catalog all of the landmark
events in Bob Feller's long and eventful life.

Impossible for anyone
except, maybe, Feller himself, whose memory was matchless and story-telling
compelling.

Here, we mention some of the key dates in the life, military
service and baseball career of the legendary Cleveland Indians pitcher.

1886: The red barn where Feller grew up -- it still stands
and is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites -- is built.

Nov. 3, 1918: Born in Van Meter, Iowa.

July 25, 1935: Signed as
a 16-year-old, after his sophomore year in high school, by the Indians for one
dollar and an autographed baseball.

July 19, 1936: Having never played
in the minor leagues, the 17-year-old Feller makes his major league debut,
pitching a scoreless inning in relief during the Indians' 9-5 loss to the
Senators in Washington.

Aug. 23, 1936: Makes his first start after six
relief outings and strikes out 15 St. Louis Browns in a 4-1 victory in
Cleveland's League Park. It's his first win.

Sept. 13, 1936: Feller,
still 17, breaks American League strikeout record by whiffing 17 Philadelphia
A's in a 5-2 win at League Park.

April 19, 1937: As a high school
senior, is on the cover of Time Magazine.

Spring, 1937: Graduation from
Van Meter High School is nationally broadcast on NBC radio.

Aug. 25,
1937: Rapid Robert, 18, strikes out 16 Boston Red Sox in an 8-1 victory at
League Park.

Oct. 2, 1938: Feller, 19, sets major league record by
striking out 18 Tigers but loses, 4-1, at Cleveland Stadium.

Sept. 8,
1939: Feller, 20, becomes youngest pitcher of 20th Century to win 20 games in a
season, beating the St. Louis Browns, 12-1, at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

April 16, 1940: Pitches what is still the lone Opening Day no-hitter in
history, beating the White Sox, 1-0, at Chicago's Comiskey Park.

Sept.
22, 1940: Gets what would be his career-high 27th win, topping the Tigers, 10-5,
at Detroit's Briggs Stadium.

Dec. 7, 1941: While driving from Van Meter
to Chicago to talk contract with the Indians, Feller hears on his car radio that
the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.

Dec. 9, 1941: Enlists in the
United States Navy. When the 1941 season ended, Feller was 22 and had a 107-54
career win-loss record. He had led the American League in wins each of the last
three seasons, and would in his next two full seasons after World War II. He had
led the major leagues in strikeouts each of the last four seasons -- his first
full seasons -- and would in his next three full seasons after the war.


APBob Feller (left), shortly after enlisting in the Navy, with Hall
of Famer and Navy air pilot Ted Williams (center), and pitcher Hugh Mulcahy, who
also served in World War II.
Jan. 6, 1942: Reports for duty to Norfolk, Va.

1942: Made a chief petty officer and serves as a physical training
instructor, and wanting to be in combat, trains at a naval gunnery school in
Newport, Rhode Island. Assigned to the battleship USS Alabama as a gun captain.

1943: The USS Alabama, with Feller, escorts convoys in the North
Atlantic, where German U-boats constantly sank allied ships.

Aug., 1943:
The USS Alabama, with Feller, heads for the Central Pacific, where over the next
two years, it engaged in violent battles off Tarawa and in the Marshall Islands,
Caroline Islands and the Phillipines.

March, 1945: Transferred to the
Great Lakes Naval Training Center.

Aug. 21, 1945: Transferred to
inactive duty. Bob Feller earned five campaign ribbons and eight battle stars
for his military service.

Aug. 23, 1945: Rejoins the Indians.

Aug. 24, 1945: Pitching in his first game in 1,428 days, and after 44
months in the military, pitches a complete game six-hitter with 12 strikeouts,
beating the Tigers, 4-2, at Cleveland Stadium.

April 30, 1946: Pitches
his second no-hitter, topping the New York Yankees, 1-0, at Yankee Stadium.
Catcher Frank Hayes slugs the game-winning homer in the top of the ninth inning.

Sept. 29, 1946: Pitches a complete game, 4-1 win over the Tigers in
Detroit's Briggs Stadium. Finishes the season 26-15 with a 2.18 ERA, tied for
the major league lead in wins. The Indians were 42-71 in their other games.
Finished with major league-leading 348 strikeouts, 36 complete games and 10
shutouts, and even had four saves. The 348 strikeouts were then a 20th century
major league record, although record revisions later found that Rube Waddell had
349 strikeouts in 1904. The 36 complete games were the most since 1916, and the
closest a pitcher has been since were Robin Roberts' 33 complete games in 1953.

Sept. 22, 1948: Pitches a three-hitter to beat the Red Sox, 5-2, before
76,772 fans at Cleveland Stadium, putting the Indians in a first-place tie with
Boston, with eight games left for both teams. The teams finished in a
first-place tie, setting up the Tribe's 8-3, one-game playoff win at Fenway Park
to win the American League pennant.


PD historical photoBob Feller
giving youngsters some pitching tips in 1952.
Oct. 6, 1948: Pitches a
two-hitter but loses, 1-0, to the Boston Braves in Game 1 of the World Series.
Boston's Phil Masi scores in the bottom of the eighth inning after he is picked
off second base by Feller -- as films show -- but is called safe. Indians,
though, go on to win the series, four games to two -- their last World Series
championship.

Jan. 18, 1950: Feller suggests to the Indians that his
salary be cut by $20,000, from his contract calling for about $70,000, after
going 15-14 in 1949. The Indians accept.

July 1, 1951: Pitches his third
no-hitter, tying a record held by Cy Young at the time, in a 2-1 victory over
Detroit at Cleveland Stadium. John Lipon scores the Tigers run, reaching first
on an error, stealing second, taking third on an errant throw and scoring on a
fly.

June 12, 1954: Gets his 2,500th career strikeout in a 4-3 win over
the Red Sox in Boston's Fenway Park, putting the Indians alone in first place.
They stay there on the way to a then-AL best-ever record of 111-43. Feller
finished his career with 2,581 strikeouts, trailing just Walter Johnson -- who
pitched 2,087 more career innings than Feller -- and Cy Young -- who pitched
3,529 more career innings than Bob.

May 1, 1955: Pitches his 12th, and
his last, one-hitter, beating the Red Sox, 2-0, in Cleveland Stadium. The 12
one-hitters are still a record, tied by Nolan Ryan in 1993.

Sept. 30,
1956: Pitches his last game, a complete game, 8-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers at
Cleveland Stadium.

Dec. 11, 1956: Elected president of the first
baseball players association.
1957: Feller's uniform No. 19 is retired by
the Indians.

Jan. 23, 1962: Voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his
first year of eligibility. Feller gets 93.8 percent of the votes cast by the
Baseball Writers Association of America. It's the highest percentage of votes
any player received since baseball's first Hall of Fame vote in 1936, when Ty
Cobb was named on 98.2 percent of the ballots cast and Honus Wagner and Babe
Ruth were both named on 95.1 percent.


APBob Feller acknowledging the
crowd at the 2010 Hall of Fame Classic.
1969: Voted the greatest living
right-handed pitcher in baseball’s centennial celebration.

June 10,
1995: The Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, Iowa, holds its grand opening.

July 25, 2006: The United States House of Representatives unanimously
passes a measure recognizing Feller for his military service and for the 60th
anniversary of his landmark 1946 season.

Sept. 11, 2006: The United
States Senate unanimously passes a measure recognizing Feller for his military
service and for the 60th anniversary of his landmark 1946 season.

June
21, 2009: At age 90, is a starting pitcher in the inaugural Baseball Hall of
Fame Classic in Cooperstown.

June 20, 2010: At age 91, again pitches in
the Baseball Hall of Fame Classic.