Bob Feller’s Mother’s Day Blues
The twenty year old pitching phenomenon Bob Feller promised his mother he would win the May 14, 1939 Mother’s Day game for her at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
A delegation of 700 fans from Feller’s hometown of Van Meter, Iowa had come to see Feller pitch and present him with a gift of a transistor radio.
In the delegation, sitting in the front row on the first base side, Feller’s parents, William and Lena Feller sat with their ten year old daughter Marguerite, taking in the excitement and the energy of 28,000 fans, seventy times the number of people in Van Meter. The town closest to the Feller family farm.
Feller was breezin’ along, surely to give his mother a victory, when Chicago White Sox Marvin Owen was late on one of Feller’s 100 mile per hour fastballs, tipping the ball into the stands.
The ball struck Mrs. Feller above the left eye shattering her glasses. The glass lacerated both her nose and eye, producing a fair amount of blood. Thankfully, Cleveland’s head trainer Max Weisman was able to treat the wounds before she was rushed to the hospital.
Bob Feller was stunned, but resumed pitching, giving up three runs before he was able to regain his composure.
Mrs. Feller received seven stitches on that Mother’s Day, eighty-two years ago, but she did get her Mother’s Day victory from Bob. He won the ball game, 9 to 4.
