Full Description
When Bob Feller hit the Major League Baseball scene, he instantly became one of the most famous athletes in the country. Everything Feller did made headlines, primarily because anything he did had never been done before, especially by someone his age. To this day, Feller is the only pitcher to have signed his first professional contract and played in the Major League while still in high school. By the age of seventeen he had set an American League record for most strikeouts in a game, and by nineteen, he had broken his own Major League strikeout record.
So Young, So Great covers the first six years of Feller's career, from 1936 to 1941, from his discovery in the small town of Van Meter, Iowa, as a high school junior, to his immediate entry into the Major Leagues with no minor league detours, the extensive media coverage of his every move and his box office appeal to fans, and his record-breaking feats up to his enlistment into World War II at age twenty-two.
Before signing a contract with the Cleveland Indians, Feller was a prospect of such magnitude that Major League scouts were fighting in hotel lobbies to get to Feller, still a minor, to sign a Major League contract. His high school graduation was broadcast nationally on radio. And when he had to have his wisdom teeth removed, a photographer and reporter were in the room to document it.
By focusing on the first six years of Feller's career, So Young, So Great captures in revelatory detail Feller's unprecedented arrival, as a high school teenager, on the Big League stage, and his rapid ascension into one of the game's all-time greats.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time, There Was an Arm on a Farm
Chapter 2: High School Confidential
Chapter 3: Crashing the Big-League Party
Chapter 4: Three Stars in a Car
Chapter 5: How Does it Feel to Strike 'Em Out at Only 17?
Chapter 6: Out-Judging the Judge
Chapter 7: An American Original
Chapter 8: The Big Hurt
Chapter 9: Best in Class
Chapter 10: Independence Day
Chapter 11: An 18-Year-Old Cash Cow
Chapter 12: Sweet 16
Chapter 13: One of a Kind
Chapter 14: A New Contract and a New Catcher
Chapter 15: Born to Be Who He Was
Chapter 16: Rolling with Rollie
Chapter 17: Managerial Malfeasance?
Chapter 18: A New Strikeout King
Chapter 19: View from the Batter's Box
Chapter 20: A Boy Among Men Pitching Like a Man Among Boys
Chapter 21: Feller by Night
Chapter 22: All-Star Fire-Balling Fireman
Chapter 23: Hard To Hit, Harder To Beat
Chapter 24: A Record-Breaking Contract At 21
Chapter 25: An Opening Day for the Ages
Chapter 26: The Star of Stars
Chapter 27: Mutiny on the Team, Transcendence on the Mound
Chapter 28: Flying Vegetables and Floyd Giebell
Chapter 29: Another MVP Snub
Chapter 30: King Robert the First
Chapter 31: How Does it Feel to be You at Only 22?
Chapter 32: In the Lap of the Gods
