The Key West Citizen

Feller Quits Baseball And Enters Business

CLEVELAND (AP) - Bob Feller, a big name in baseball for as long as a lot of fans can remember, won't appear on the Cleveland Indians roster anymore.

The onetime fireball pitcher announced yesterday that he is quitting baseball as an active player to spend more time at his insurance business and other interests.

Thus, a success story that stretched through two decades of the sports world came to a reasonably happy end. Feller's retirement is of his own choosing and he leaves prosperous and respected.

His career was not without its low spots. As early as 1937, a year after he joined Cleveland as an Iowa farmboy with a right arm that could make a baseball sizzle, a poll of baseball writers picked him as one of the flops of the year.

Now 38, an old man by athletic standards, Feller grew up in a lot of ways. From a kid who burned and sulked when he considered fans and scribes unreasonable, Feller became a smoothie who talked easily about his setbacks as well as his triumphs.

He made adjustments in his pitching, too. Three years in the Navy during the second World War took the edge off his speed. But the batters looking for a fast one soon found themselves biting on a new repertoire of curves and sliders.

Feller's record is a cinch to earn him a spot in baseball's Hall of Fame. His 266 victories include three no-hitters, a record shared by the late Cy Young and Larry Corcoran. His old nickname of the "Strikeout King" is borne out by another major league record, 18 strikeouts in one nine-inning game.

Once one of the highest paid men in baseball - at his peak he got around $50,000 - Feller has been an outspoken guardian of the rights of players as a whole. His gripes against the system range from salaries to rigid contracts which Feller believes restrict the players unfairly to one team.