Bob Feller’s early career remains one of baseball’s most astonishing stories, and Jim Ingraham’s new book focuses squarely on how it unfolded. It’s a sharp look at the rise of a pitcher who became a star almost overnight.
Title/Author:
“So Young, So
Great: Bob Feller Electrifies Baseball and America” by Jim Ingraham
Rating:
4 of 5 stars (Very Good)
Review:
Very few, if
any, other baseball players have taken Major League Baseball by storm as a
teenager the way Bob Feller did when he first appeared in a game for the
Cleveland Indians in 1936 at the tender age of 17. That is the premise of this book by Jim Ingraham
about the first six years of the Hall of Fame pitcher’s career.
This cannot
really be labeled as a biography as Ingraham does not write very much about
Feller’s youth or his family. At least
not in the way many sports biographies are written in which there are several
pages about the subject’s parents, grandparents and siblings. Instead, after a brief description of his
baseball success in rural Iowa, it jumps straight into the day when Indians scout
(and later Vice President) Cy Slapnicka approached Feller and his father and
told them he would be in Des Moines watching Bobby pitch his game that
day. Afterward, Feller was under
contract (signed by his father since he was still a minor) and property of the
Fargo-Moorhead Twins, a farm club of the Indians.
From there, it
was a whirlwind of moves, protests by other clubs and some fancy paperwork by
Slapnicka that resulted in Feller making his debut in 1936. And what a debut that was, as Feller struck
out 15 St. Louis Browns on his way to a 4-1 victory. Ingraham does a good job
of recapping this game and showering praise on Feller.
This was a good
preview of what the rest of the book would be like as in each chapter, each
successive season, Feller became the best pitcher in baseball as shown by
either the traditional statistics used at the time or the advanced metrics
favored by baseball analysts today. The
writing about his pitching was good, the coverage of what other players thought
about his was better and Ingraham’s musings about the use of Feller in those first
six years so that attendance would be better for both the Indians and other American
League teams was great. On that latter
part, Feller was often called a “cash cow” in the book since average attendance
at games he would pitch would be nearly triple that of all the other games at
all American League cities, including Cleveland.
Other aspects
of Feller’s life away from baseball during this time frame, even if they are
only mentioned briefly, make the book feel like a more complete description of
his life during this time frame. Of
course, his decision to enlist in the Navy instead of waiting to be drafted
soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor is a major decision in his life. As was the death of his father and the
resignation of Slapnicka from the Indians, all around the same time.
It was notable
that other major parts of his life, such as his wedding to his wife Virginia,
didn’t get as much notice in the book as did other events that were covered by
the press – events that would otherwise not even be mentioned. These are events
that many young men would have, but because this was Bob Feller, the best
pitcher in baseball, the press covered them. These included his high school
graduation and when he had his wisdom teeth removed.
There is quite
a bit of repetition in the book, of which the most noteworthy is the frequent mention
of the title – so young, so great. That
is understandable, especially when one considers how much Feller accomplished
before the age of 23. But for other
aspects, such as the recollections of how Slapnicka found Feller, they don’t
feel like they are part of the story. However, this does not detract from the
excellent writing about the accomplishments of a pitcher at such a young age.
Looking at this
part of Bob Feller’s career is a very good choice to give a reader an excellent
look into his baseball life. If you want to understand why Bob Feller became a
Hall of Famer before he became an adult, this focused look at his early career
makes the case as well as anyone ever has.
I wish to thank
University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book. The opinions
expressed in this review are strictly my own.
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