In From the Cold With The "Heater"
VAN METER, IA – Cleveland Indians pitching legend Bob "The Heater from Van Meter" Feller opened up his museum today in spite of the bad weather to give Mike Huckabee a personal tour.
The longest-tenured living baseball Hall of Famer (Feller was inducted in 1962) lent his support to Huckabee a few months ago in a phone call.
"This country has been going south too long," said Feller, a right-hander who pitched for Cleveland for 18 years and also took time off from baseball to serve during World War II.
"We got to get ourselves by the bootstraps and get it back to where it was…This is a great nation. And all we World War II veterans, we had unrelenting resolve to keep the nation the way it is for all you young people."
Plans for the 89-year-old baseball legend to join Huckabee on the trail were scrapped today after all campaign events were canceled due to winter weather.
Feller showed Huckabee glass-encased memorabilia from Feller's life, including the bat Babe Ruth leaned on during the Bambino's retirement ceremony in June 1948. On that day, the Yankees were playing the Indians and the bat belonged to Feller, who bought it back for $95,000 more than thirty years later
The former pitcher also got to share with Huckabee, a known quipster, some of his own quips.
"Trying to sneak a fast ball by Ted Williams is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster," he joked.