One man's tribute to the greatest Cleveland Indian of them all

There probably isn't a whole lot I can say about Bob Feller that you haven't read or heard. He was with little question the greatest Cleveland Indian of them all -- and unlike Cleveland's greatest football and basketball players, Jim Brown and LeBron James, he was worthy of unqualified respect.

I know I'm not the first person to point to Feller's military career, but reportedly, when he was asked what his greatest victory was, he didn't name his Opening Day no-hitter in 1940, or the 1948 World Series -- he said World War II, and clearly meant it. And when you consider what he gave up to help stop Hitler and Mussolini, it means that much more. Feller was 23 years old when he enlisted, and had already won 107 major league games. (Incidentally, that's still the all-time record for major league wins through age 22.)

He served for three full years, and most of a fourth, then came back and was again the best pitcher in the majors. He won 25 games in 1941, served in World War II, won five games in 1945 at age 26, then won 26 in 1946. Feller finished his career with 266 wins; if you interpolate what he might have done in the years he was serving our country, it might have been somewhere around 380, which would put him third on the all-time list. We'll never know. Of course, he might have hurt his arm if he'd pitched all those years, but I doubt it. Feller averaged more than 300 innings a season from 1938 to 1941, at ages 19 to 22. If his arm was going to give out, it would have done so by then.

When I was a young lad in love with baseball myself, playing as well as watching the grand old game, I had immersed myself in baseball history. I had already read probably a couple of dozen books on the subject. So even though Bob Feller was out of baseball for nearly 20 years by the time I was born, I knew exactly who he was what he meant to Indians baseball by the time I was about 8 or 10. My dad, an ex-Amishman with a strong work ethic, had installed a wood-burning stove in our house as a means to save on heating bills. Of course, a wood stove requires wood, which has to be chopped and stacked. My dad, my two brothers and I did that work -- my dad, voluntarily; the three of us, compulsorily. We boys would whine and belly-ache about how hard it was. But my dad got me motivated, at least temporarily, by telling me that he heard Bob Feller talk about working on his dad's farm as a boy, and how the ceaseless labor made his arm strong and made him the pitcher he was. When I heard that, I wanted to work harder. Until I realized I was never going to be Bob Feller anyway. There was only one of those.

I could go on and on about Feller, about his encyclopedic memory of his playing career; his high school graduation being nationally broadcast on the radio; his blunt opinions about things ranging from steroids to politics; his tireless autograph signings (which of course were rarely for free). But there are no doubt literally hundreds of writers pounding out tales like that today, many of whom are getting paid for their words, and I will leave that to them.

Rest in peace, Robert William Andrew Feller. You were the greatest Cleveland Indian there ever was, and likely ever will be. Cleveland will never be quite the same without you.