Free High Heat by Tim Wendel Page A

curse. For Johnson, the moment was likely the 1924 World Series. For Feller, it came 14 years later, on the last day of the 1938 season.
    The Indians hosted the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader on October 2, a sunny day that held a hint of the long winter to follow. Hank Greenberg, the Tigers’ All-Star first baseman, came into the
game two home runs shy of Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in one season. At that point in history, it was baseball’s most recognizable mark.
    Many of the Indians vowed that Greenberg wouldn’t break the Babe’s record on their watch. Several of the veteran ballplayers, especially Hal Trosky, fondly remembered Ruth. Out of loyalty to the Babe, they didn’t want to see Greenberg break the 60-home-run mark.
    But there was also an undercurrent of prejudice, even religious zeal, that day in Cleveland. Greenberg was the first Jewish superstar in the national pastime. Across the Atlantic, Hitler was making religion a device for division and quickly gaining political power in Germany. Into this cauldron of escalating allegiances and pursuits of all-time individual records stepped Feller. He had been named to be the starting pitcher in the first game of the doubleheader. More than 27,000 fans attended the game to bid the Indians adieu for another season and to see if Greenberg could catch the Babe. Instead they were treated to a different record performance.
    The Indians decided they would pitch to Greenberg. No intentional walks, even with men in scoring position. Going against Feller, the great Tigers first baseman, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame 18 years later, went 1-for-4. His lone hit in the first game was a double. He had better success in the second game with three hits, but they were all singles. He finished the day still with 58 home runs. The Babe’s record would be safe until Roger Maris broke it in 1961.
    In that first game, Greenberg was one of the few Tigers to have any success against Feller. The Indians’ hurler would finish the 1938 season with 240 strikeouts and a modern major-league record 208 walks. But on this day, the elements of his game came together, becoming a template that would guide him to 20-plus victory seasons in the next three years, before World War II sent him overseas.
    At the time, the major-league record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game was 17, set by another fireballer, Dizzy Dean. But early on against the Tigers, many in the crowd sensed that Feller’s stuff, especially his fastball, had never been better.

    â€œIt was one of those days when everything feels perfect,” Feller says, “your arm, your coordination, your concentration, everything. There was drama in the air because of Greenberg’s attempt to break Ruth’s record, and the excitement became even greater when my strikeouts started to add up.”
    After striking out rookie second baseman Ben McCoy in the first inning, Feller struck out the side in the second, third, and fourth innings. He picked up two more Ks in the fifth, two more in the sixth, and one each in the seventh and eighth, so by the time the ninth inning rolled around the crowd was on its feet, realizing that Feller was on a record pace.
    That’s when this 19-year-old phenom got Pete Fox for his 17th strikeout of the game. Feller’s walk of Detroit catcher Birdie Tebbetts then brought up Chet Laabs. The odds were definitely working against Feller now. He had already struck out Laabs four times in the game. The next season Laabs would be traded to the St. Louis Browns, where he would lead the league in pinch hits. Just the type of batter the baseball gods will often befriend. The kind of future journeyman perfectly capable of derailing history.
    But Feller quickly ran two fastballs past Laabs. When he first entered the big leagues, Feller was criticized for going away from his best pitch—that is, his fastball—with the game on the line. Early in his career, he had