GOOD FELLER – AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  Bob Feller has died.  For those of us of a certain age, he was one of the most memorable baseball players of the century, the great pitcher of the Cleveland Indians.  The word "great" is overused these days, as is the word "star."  But Bob Feller was a great and a star.

When I was a kid, I rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  For Dodger fans, no other team warranted respect, let alone warmth.  There was another New York team, the Yankees – you may have read about them – whom we held in complete contempt.  Rooting for the Yankees, as the baseball writer, Roger Kahn, pointed out, was like rooting for U.S. Steel.  We of the working people, while acknowledging individual Yanks like Ruth, Gehrig and Dimagg, despised them.  Only people who shopped at Brooks Brothers rooted for the Yankees.

Oh yes, there existed the New York Giants, another local club that attempted baseball.  They played in a place called the Polo Grounds, which which Dodger fans would visit if the Giants were playing our boys.  Sometimes you had to go slumming.

There was no regard for the foreign teams, the ones outside New York.  But there was a grudging sense of awe about a tiny number of their players – Ted Williams, Stan Musial...and Bob Feller.

Of course we hated Feller because he could strike out Duke Snider, a sainted Dodger.  But you had to respect his skill.  I read, back in my early years, that Feller's fast ball was clocked at 98 miles an hour, a phenomenal speed in those days.  And he did this after taking years off to serve on battleships during World War II. 

To win the respect of Dodger fans was high praise, especially among Dodger fans.  This was an age, after all, when our high school, during the last period of the day, would let us listen to World Series games if a local team was involved.  Baseball was big.  Bigger than the Sony PlayStation.

So we remember Bob Feller and the game he played.  The Brooklyn Dodgers are long gone, victims of the great treason of 1957.  The good Feller survived them by 53 years.  Both will be remembered with affection.

December 17, 2010