“We should have had Negro players in 1839, at the beginning of baseball.” This was the answer given by the great Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller when someone  asked him last week in Cooperstown  about his first black teammate.

Feller’s response made me feel admiration for this 83-year-old member of baseball’s Hall of Fame. So, of course, does his great career that began in 1936 when he was only 17. He still finds prideful satisfaction in remaining the youngest pitcher ever to win a big league game.

Another point of pride is his service in the navy during World War II: he boasts of having been a crew member of the battleship Alabama for 34 months and crossing the equator some 38 times.

For me, a first-time visitor to the baseball shrine that is Cooperstown, New York, contact with the greats of major league history stirred nostalgia.  Getting the chance to talk with Bob Feller had special impact on me as a longtime fan. After all, my father took me to games at Fenway Park more than 60 years ago, before I reached my teens.

I recall seeing Bob Feller pitch against the Red Sox more than once in the late 1930s.  His fast ball was already legend, though he now says it took him three years “to learn to pitch.” He did indeed seem to have learned something by 1940, when his record was 27 and 11, with 31 complete games!

Approaching this boyhood idol, I asked him about pitching at Fenway.  He told me about finding the pitcher’s mound different from that in other stadiums and a difficult height. He also felt it to be a challenge to face formidable hitters like Jimmy Foxx, to whom he would sometimes throw pitches sidearm. He denies having feared the close left field wall, and says he worried more about the power alley in left center.

As I studied the face of this octogenarian, I could still see that of the boy who faced the Red Sox so long ago.  His face now is broader and marked by the years, but its basic structure allowed me to connect him with that Iowa farm boy in an Indians uniform. Yes, this is the same person who achieved so many victories in his baseball career and who has lived so many decades since putting away the uniform.

Another great player whom I talked with at Cooperstown belongs to a different generation and remains under a cloud of disrepute. Pete Rose holds the record of the most hits in one career, but still has not been admitted to the Hall of Fame because of the charge that he bet on games. Many of the fans who came to Cooperstown last week did not seem to care: they lined up at a Main Street store to have him autograph balls at 40 dollars a pop.

Pete Rose impressed me as a feisty, defiant sort of guy. I did not want to test his combativeness, however, since he was eating lunch with friends. Avoiding touchy subjects, I asked him about his Cincinnati Reds champion team, whether they were the best ever. The furthest he would go was to call them “the most entertaining.”

I also asked what it was like to play in the famous sixth game at Fenway against the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series. He admitted it was a great game and recalls watching Carleton Fisk’s celebrated home run sailing over his head at third base. “As Fisk was waving the ball to make it stay fair, I was waving it in the opposite direction to make it go foul,” he recalled smilingly.

The third baseball great I had the chance to question is the only player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, Ozzie Smith. This famous shortstop turns out to be an awfully nice guy, handsome, well-spoken, and respectful of other people, even members of the press. Ozzie retired only six years ago and thus represents the newest generation to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

I asked him about the advantages of remaining with the same team. He feels happy about having spent most of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, playing for an organization and for fans that valued him both as a player and as a person.

I also wondered what his plans are for the rest of his life. In baseball, people judge time differently from those in the real world. “I just feel blessed to have the longevity to have played so long,” he says of his 20 years as a pro.

Only 48 now, he presumably will live for decades longer. His answer suggests that he does not have a clear game plan for the coming years. “I’m just kind of floating right now,” he said, while indicating his interest in a possible movie career.

Three famous players, three different generations, three different marks on baseball – – it all made for a scene of fascination for this veteran fan.

Richard Griffin