Now Pitching, Bob Feller: Bob Feller

After so many recent sports autobiographies by also-rans, here is one by a baseball superstar, coauthored with freelancer Gilbert, and it is well worth reading. Iowa farm boy Feller broke into the major leagues in 1936 at age 17 with the Cleveland Indians, and went on to set all sorts of records for strikeouts, no-hit and one-hit games for the next 20 years. He emerges here as a levelheaded man, able to cope with his teenage celebrity and with the triumphs and tragedies that followed, chief among them his first wife's alcoholism and drug addiction and his inability to help her. Most interesting to fans are Feller's assessments of the players he considers the best: Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and pitcher Walter Johnson. Another intriguing sidelight is the depiction of his 50-year friendship with former Iowa sports announcer Ronald Reagan. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)