Rapid Robert remains a most engaging Feller

Friday, April 23, 2004 | 10:29 a.m.

Bob Feller would pitch to Barry Bonds the same way he once threw to Ted Williams. First, Feller, a Hall of Fame right-handed pitcher who threw as hard as anyone, would toss up one of his change-of-pace specials.

"A little overhand curveball," Feller said. "Barry would get out there ahead of it and pull it foul, then I'd waste a fastball (out of the strike zone). And then I'd throw him sliders at his fists.

"If he backed away a little bit, I'd just keep bringing 'em in. If he got too far back, I'd try to catch the outside corner. I don't know how that would work out. I don't know."

Feller said he would need to be careful, like a surgeon. Like Mickey Mantle, he said, and most powerful lefties, Bonds tattoos low pitches, but Feller might be tempted.

"Once, when it didn't mean anything in the game, I'd try to throw him a high changeup," Feller said. "I'd hang it right up out here (pointing in front of his nose) and say, 'Here!' He might do like Mantle used to do and hit it 500 feet -- 250 up, and 250 down.

"But you never know, he just might hit it 500 feet to dead center. Sometimes, they'll try to hit it too far and try to kill it, then they pop up. But once in a while, they'll get ahold of one. It would be a nice experiment."

Feller facing Bonds is only fantasy, a showdown between two of the game's best players that could only be played out in the mind of an old-timer or a yet-to-be-produced Sega game.

Feller, 85, toyed with the idea Thursday soon after flying into town to take part in a two-hour autograph show, with Darrell Evans and Rollie Fingers, that begins Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Stardust and will be presented by Play Ball!

Less than a week earlier, Pete Rose was in the same Spring Mountain Road suite, signing baseballs. Had the two met, Feller vs. Rose would have undoubtedly stirred up more dust than Feller vs. Bonds.

Before Thursday's interview session, a traveling friend of Feller's warned that Pete Rose would be the only off-limits subject with Feller.

"That 'no-betting' sign in all of the clubhouses? Bob believed that," said Feller's friend, Lou. "He thinks (Rose) should be banned (forever, from the Hall of Fame) because everyone read that sign."

Feller, who was elected to the Hall in 1962, is the senior living member of baseball's showcase of immortals.

He also hasn't lost his edginess. Always outspoken, Feller said Bonds should submit to a drug test, for steroids, to quell all the innuendo that has enveloped the man who is chasing Hank Aaron's all-time record for home runs.

"If I were him, I would volunteer to take a test," Feller said. "It would be good for his image, if he's not taking them. Take it to prove he isn't (taking steroids)."

Feller also said pitchers, and managers, who constantly walk Bonds are "overdoing it," and that there are too few pitchers who can successfully challenge Bonds.

"There are a hell of a lot of 'throwers' in the major leagues right now, and not too many 'pitchers,' " Feller said. "That's another problem. That's a big problem."

In an 18-year career, in which he was 266-162, Feller led the American League in complete games three times, in shutouts four times, in starts five times and in strikeouts seven times.

That last statistic included a four-year interruption, the period he spent in the U.S. Navy after he enlisted, and was sworn in by former heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney, two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Slugger Hank Greenberg was the first big league star to volunatrily enter the military.

Feller struck out more batters than any other AL pitcher from 1938-41, and 1946-48.

In World War II, he was a decorated anti-aircraft gunner, having won five campaign ribbons studded with eight battle stars. The battleship U.S.S. Alabama, on which Feller served, was part of the Third Fleet that awoke to a frenzied fight on June 19, 1944.

Near the Northern Mariana Islands, what became known as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot cost the Japanese 373 planes and two aircraft carriers by late that afternoon and led to air domination by the allies and the eventual Japanese surrender.

Feller has described that day as the greatest of his life.

"We were credited with 22 (kills) but we never knew for sure what was going on," he said. "There were so many bullets in the air; eight rounds per second, and there were dive bombers, torpedoes ...

"We were busy in 1944. We crossed the equator 28 times. By the time the sun went down (on June 19), that battle was over. Our fighters did a great job."

These days, Feller, whose tall, high-kicking statue stands outside Gate C of Jacobs Field in Cleveland, does a variety of work for the Indians, the only team for whom he played.

His museum in his hometown of Van Meter, Iowa, is a popular attraction, as is a particular model of his K-55 Hillerich and Bradsby bat.

It's the one Babe Ruth used to lean on during what amount to a farewell speech to the Yankee Stadium crowd on June 13, 1948. Ruth entered through the visitors' dugout and grabbed a bat, Feller's, at the last second for support.

Feller had Ruth sign the bat, and it splits time between Van Meter and Cooperstown, N.Y., site of baseball's Hall of Fame.

Feller is a regular on the autograph circuit, attends about 90 percent of Cleveland's home games and makes a few trips a year to Mobile, Ala., where the U.S.S. Alabama is dry docked. Feller's visits help raise funds that keep the ship in shape.

This isn't Feller's first Las Vegas visit, either. A year after WW II, he opposed the legendary Satchel Paige here during a barnstorming trip in which their two teams played each other 35 times in 30 days.

"When the town was nothing," Feller said. "There were only three hotels here. And the Desert Inn, where I stayed, had only two rooms because it was under construction. I have no idea who won that game, but it didn't draw that many fans.

"I've always liked Las Vegas. There are a lot of good people here, good friends, and they work hard."