Do you have any proof of these claims or are you just going on hearsay and conjecture?
I never met the man, but I know those that DID....and I have read every baseball book I have ever laid my hands on, and have known several major leaguer's over the years: Nate Colbert, Bob Shaw, Dal Maxville, Al Jackson, Jesse Gonder and the great Harry Carey....but my #1 source is the "Coach".
The Coach was a co-worker of mine that I once had quite a chat with. I never knew his real name as even his name tag read "Coach"....we shared a table over lunch one day and I asked him what did he coach. Baseball was his answer. Thrilled to learn that he was briefly a Cleaveland Indian I bombarded him with questions about Colovito, but he remembered very little that was note worthy from his 2 months in the bigs....except for one man: Feller.
The Coach was a gangling 6'6" r/handed fastballer, and to his surprise, on the very 1st day with the team Feller invited him to join him and a couple others after the game for beers. As the night drew on Feller brought the subject around to Niggers, and displayed such vehemence that the Coach, himself a Southerner became quite uneasy. After all, had not Larry Doby shook his hand in welcome just hours before?
Coach said that the other guys drifted away and he was left to squirm alone, and this performance was repeated every single night after the game. He said to me " Feller had more hatred for the Black man than anyone I ever met, and I've met quite a few. He gave me the creeps...he was at the end of his career and his focus was less on his legacy than his hate."
I have no reason in the world to doubt the Coach's story, and it has proved to be true. Squelched by the sports writers for a generation (like the Babe's excesses) one writer finally asked him on an ESPN show that I SAW with my own eyes about 4 years ago: "Have your feelings on race relations changed?" Feller was visibly shook by the question...his eyes blinked like crazy as he tried to stammer out a P.C. response, kind of like Al Campanis when Ted Koeple gave him a shot at explaining what he had just said.
Later I told this story to Curt Floods girlfriend who had just returned from his funeral...she was a customer of mine in San Diego for years, but I did not know she knew Flood until that day when I spotted her funeral program on the table. She could not corroborate it as she was not a baseball fan and knew few names, but Curt told her MANY stories over the years, and yes, one was indeed a Hall of Fame A.L. pitcher. Since Flood was a career N.L.er I gotta figure that it was no secret, this Feller fellow.
Of course, he was far from the only hard racist in the game at that time. One of my own Cardinal icons, Enos Slaughter was pretty bad. When I found this out he ceased to be a hero in my mind...the same goes for the greatest right handed hitter of all time, Rogers Hornsby. Fuck 'em both. And double fuck you, Feller.
