and several others; I was coaching in boise, idaho and noticed in the statesman that Bob Feller was doing an autograph session at the local k-mart. this was in conjunction with an appearance he would be making at the Boise hawks baseball game to throw for a home run contest. The hawks at that time were a class A Oakland A`s affiliate.
Gathering my 8 year old son we headed for K-mart. As the true compulsive person I have always been we arrived 15 minutes early and staked ourselves near the entrance far away from the autograph area where most of the fans were gathering. Since I knew I could recognize the Van Meter flash, there was a distinct advantage over the waiting fans. Sure enough Bob came into the K-Mart about 5 minutes early. I intercepted him before he could get to the autograph area and struck up a conversation with him. He gave my son two autographed balls and answered several questions for me. Bob, had served 5 years during ww2 in the Navy. Prior to that he had won 25 games and was in his prime so we talked about how many games he might have won except for ww2.
My questions were:What is wrong with baseball today, his answer"There are too many people not in Baseball, making too much money from baseball." I took that to mean agents.
The second question was even better. Me, Bob if you were in your prime today winning the games you did then what would you sign for as a free agent?
His answer while breaking into a big grin,"They would have had to give me part of the franchise."
He then invited us to come to the game that evening to watch the home run hitting contest that he was pitching. One of the rookies on that Hawk team was a young man named Rickie Henderson. This was an event I will never forget as my son also refers to it as well.
Gathering my 8 year old son we headed for K-mart. As the true compulsive person I have always been we arrived 15 minutes early and staked ourselves near the entrance far away from the autograph area where most of the fans were gathering. Since I knew I could recognize the Van Meter flash, there was a distinct advantage over the waiting fans. Sure enough Bob came into the K-Mart about 5 minutes early. I intercepted him before he could get to the autograph area and struck up a conversation with him. He gave my son two autographed balls and answered several questions for me. Bob, had served 5 years during ww2 in the Navy. Prior to that he had won 25 games and was in his prime so we talked about how many games he might have won except for ww2.
My questions were:What is wrong with baseball today, his answer"There are too many people not in Baseball, making too much money from baseball." I took that to mean agents.
The second question was even better. Me, Bob if you were in your prime today winning the games you did then what would you sign for as a free agent?
His answer while breaking into a big grin,"They would have had to give me part of the franchise."
He then invited us to come to the game that evening to watch the home run hitting contest that he was pitching. One of the rookies on that Hawk team was a young man named Rickie Henderson. This was an event I will never forget as my son also refers to it as well.
