Bob Feller

THE DEAL IS ON STRIKE THREE: THE STORY MUDVILLE NEVER KNEW

INTRODUCTION 

BY HALL OF FAME LEGEND BOB FELLER        

I have never seen a baseball book that teaches family values and life’s 

lessons to children as does The Deal is on Strike Three. It presents the Great American Pastime, Baseball, with which l have been proudly associated for more than 70 years, in a way that reminds all of us about the true fabric of America.  Parents should read this book and discuss the lessons it teaches with their children. I am very proud to be part of it. 

One of the reasons I am so pleased to endorse The Deal is on Strike Three is that I know my late father, William Feller, who died in 1943, seven years after he developed brain cancer, also would have been proud for his son to be honored in this manner.  It’s because everything in Peter Fertig’s and Rudy Saviano’s book, subtitled, “The Story Mudville Never Knew,”  is a lesson of hope and faith and love, all the family values that my dad and mother Lena stressed to me and my younger sister Marguerite as 

we were growing up.  

Fortunately – and happily - my dad lived long enough for him to realize I had fulfilled my dream of signing a professional baseball contract in 1935 with the Cleveland Indians. I was only 16 going on 17 at the time, and received a baseball autographed by members of the Indians team and a bonus of one dollar. Unfortunately – and sadly – my dad did not live long enough to know that all the things he taught me as a boy growing up on our farm near Van Meter, Iowa would result in my becoming one of the game’s most successful pitchers, which resulted in my election to the National 

Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, my first year of eligibility.  

My 18-year career (1936-1956) was interrupted for 44 months because I enlisted in the Navy two days after the start of World War II. I served as a chief petty officer and gun captain aboard the USS Alabama. Our battle ship earned five campaign ribbons and eight battle stars, and was credited with 22 “kills” (Japanese planes shot down). 

I returned to the Indians late in the 1945 season, resumed my career and went on to win a total of 266 games, including 20 or more a year six times, with three no-hitters and 12 one-hitters, pitched 3,827 innings in 572 games, completed 279 of my 484 starts, threw 44 shutouts and compiled 2,581 strikeouts. Yes, my dad would have been proud of his farm-boy son with a strong right arm.  

It actually began for me – and my dad – when he bought me my first 

baseball uniform and glove when I was eight years old, the same age as the boy in The Deal is on Strike Three. From that day on, and through all the days thereafter that my dad and I played catch alongside the barn behind our house, all I ever dreamed of being was a baseball player. 

Those also were the days that my dad and mom, a former school teacher and later a nurse who passed away in 1954 at the age of 61, instilled in me and my sister the qualities that are so important for any person to be successful. Qualities that “Casey” emphasized to his eight year old son in The Deal is on Strike Three, all the while the boy feared his father would strike out as another “Casey” did in the earlier version of Casey at the Bat, in another town named “Mudville.” 

My parents weren’t wealthy from a financial standpoint, but were generous in terms of giving me their time and love. Something else my dad gave me when I was 14 was our very own field of dreams. He built it 57 years before Kevin Costner’s 1989 movie, Field of Dreams. We called it “Oak View” because my dad had to cut down about 20 oak trees to clear some of the 80 acres of timber on our farm. We played games at 

“Oak View” against other town teams, mostly on Sundays. I pitched most of the time, and also played third base, shortstop and second base on an American Legion team.   

Almost every day, when I wasn’t playing a game and after I’d get home from school, my dad and I would play catch. I’d pitch to him, and then he’d pitch to me before it got dark or was time for supper.  One way or another, either as a pitcher, or catching my dad or playing the infield, I was usually throwing a baseball, which probably is the reason my arm was so strong back then and into my career with the Indians. It still is for a man my age. 

I also worked the farm with my dad, milking cows, picking corn, throwing bales of straw and hay around, all of which also helped strengthen my arms, hands and legs long before I became a teenager. Looking back at it now, I realize how my dad and I developed a wonderful father-son relationship – something else that I recalled as I read “the story that Mudville never knew.” And just as in The Deal is on Strike Three, as Casey’s son prevailed because of his faith in his dad, I feel that I did, too - and in so 

doing justified the faith my father had in me.  

This I strongly believe, even though my dad did not live long enough to realize that much of what I achieved in my 18 year major league baseball career can be attributed to him for his encouragement and faith in me.  

But, again, it was more than about baseball that I learned from my father.  He taught me – as did Casey to his son in The Deal is on Strike Three - family values and the importance of being a man of integrity, courage with the absolute strength if his convictions, off the field as well as on it. It’s what motivated me to enlist in the Navy two days after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, marking the entrance of our country into World War II.  I probably could have remained in civilian life and continued my baseball career because of my dad’s serious illness which was diagnosed in 1936. And despite the brain cancer that was killing – and soon would kill – my dad, leaving my mother and sister alone to operate the farm while I played baseball, he understood why I felt compelled to put my career aside and join the Navy. It was, after all, something far more important than baseball that I’d learned from my dad, just as Casey’s son learned life’s lessons from his dad in The Deal is on Strike Three, The Story 

Mudville Never Knew. 

I’ll say it again: it’s a wonderful book that I highly recommend for parents and their children. 

- BOB FELLER