When Bob Feller hit the Major League Baseball scene, he instantly became one of the most famous athletes in the country. Everything Feller did made headlines, primarily because anything he did had never been done before, especially by someone his age. To this day, Feller is the only pitcher to have signed his first professional contract and played in the Major League while still in high school. By the age of seventeen he had set an American League record for most strikeouts in a game, and by nineteen, he had broken his own Major League strikeout record.
So Young, So Great covers the first six years of Feller's career, from 1936 to 1941, from his discovery in the small town of Van Meter, Iowa, as a high school junior, to his immediate entry into the Major Leagues with no minor league detours, the extensive media coverage of his every move and his box office appeal to fans, and his record-breaking feats up to his enlistment into World War II at age twenty-two.
Before signing a contract with the Cleveland Indians, Feller was a prospect of such magnitude that Major League scouts were fighting in hotel lobbies to get to Feller, still a minor, to sign a Major League contract. His high school graduation was broadcast nationally on radio. And when he had to have his wisdom teeth removed, a photographer and reporter were in the room to document it.
By focusing on the first six years of Feller's career, So Young, So Great captures in revelatory detail Feller's unprecedented arrival, as a high school teenager, on the Big League stage, and his rapid ascension into one of the game's all-time greats.
By:
Jim Ingraham
Imprint: University of Nebraska Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781496245595
ISBN 10: 1496245598
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 01 June 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
List of Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time, There Was an Arm on a Farm Chapter 2: High School Confidential Chapter 3: Crashing the Big-League Party Chapter 4: Three Stars in a Car Chapter 5: How Does it Feel to Strike ’Em Out at Only 17? Chapter 6: Out-Judging the Judge Chapter 7: An American Original Chapter 8: The Big Hurt Chapter 9: Best in Class Chapter 10: Independence Day Chapter 11: An 18-Year-Old Cash Cow Chapter 12: Sweet 16 Chapter 13: One of a Kind Chapter 14: A New Contract and a New Catcher Chapter 15: Born to Be Who He Was Chapter 16: Rolling with Rollie Chapter 17: Managerial Malfeasance? Chapter 18: A New Strikeout King Chapter 19: View from the Batter’s Box Chapter 20: A Boy Among Men Pitching Like a Man Among Boys Chapter 21: Feller by Night Chapter 22: All-Star Fire-Balling Fireman Chapter 23: Hard To Hit, Harder To Beat Chapter 24: A Record-Breaking Contract At 21 Chapter 25: An Opening Day for the Ages Chapter 26: The Star of Stars Chapter 27: Mutiny on the Team, Transcendence on the Mound Chapter 28: Flying Vegetables and Floyd Giebell Chapter 29: Another MVP Snub Chapter 30: King Robert the First Chapter 31: How Does it Feel to be You at Only 22? Chapter 32: In the Lap of the Gods
Jim Ingraham is an award-winning sports columnist for the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram in Ohio. He is the author of Mike Hargrove and the Cleveland Indians: A Baseball Life.
Reviews for So Young, So Great: Bob Feller Electrifies Baseball and America
""A teenager pitching regularly in the Major Leagues while still in high school? Only one player has ever done it: Bob Feller, ninety years ago. They don't make 'em like that anymore, as you will learn in Jim Ingraham's new book So Young, So Great.""—Mike Hargrove, manager of the Cleveland Indians, 1991–99 ""The year is 1936, and Bob Feller enters the world of Major League Baseball one year after Babe Ruth, who at age forty, walks away from the game as a player. At age seventeen Feller comes off the family farm and stuns the baseball establishment with his record-breaking debut, just as the game is looking for a new idol. He was the American boy in the American game. Kudos to Jim Ingraham for identifying the period of 1936–41 in Feller's long and remarkable life to share with us. This period of Feller's life, filled with incredible stories of a teenage boy thrust into the national spotlight, would be the foundation of his baseball career, which would result in induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.""—Bob DiBiasio, senior vice president of public affairs for the Cleveland Guardians
