Legion honors baseball icon Bob Feller

Nicknamed \”The Heater from Van Meter,\” \”Bullet Bob\” and \”Rapid Robert\” because of his blazing fastball, Hall-of-Famer and American Legion Baseball icon Bob Feller passed away Wednesday evening from a battle with Leukemia. He was 92.

Feller, a farm kid from rural Iowa, found his calling on the mound at age 13 while playing American Legion Baseball in Van Meter – a small town exactly 17 miles west of Des Moines, as he was known to note. It was here that he began a career that carried him to greatness in the nation’s pastime, earning eight all-star selections as a professional and eventually making it to Cooperstown in 1962 as a Hall of Famer.

In his golden years, he was a great ambassador to the game of baseball. In his younger years, he was fanning batters and hurling no-hitters in Legion Baseball leagues. He often recalled his days of playing Legion Baseball as the fondest of his life, saying the experience not only gave him a start as a baseball phenom but taught him how to form lifelong friendships, deal with letdowns in athletic competition and be discovered as a pitcher.