Bob Feller Hometown Exhibit, Van Meter, Iowa

This Feller Could Pitch

The handsome exterior of the Bob Feller Hometown Exhibit, Aug-1998.

This mural is carved into a side wall of the exterior, facing the parking lot.

A look at one of the exhibit walls.

Quick Facts:

Location: Mill Street (just south of I-80 exit 113), Van Meter, Iowa
Opened: 1995
Web site: www.bobfellermuseum.org

When I was young, I found a copy of Bob Feller’s “Pitching to Win” (originally titled “How to Pitch”) at a rummage sale. Even though I never really had any pitching talent, I always remembered picking up that book and I learned more about Feller, who was an instant success when he came up with the Cleveland Indians and who finished his major league career with 266 victories.

So when I took my first Big Baseball Parks trip in 1992 and realized that I would be passing by Feller’s home town of Van Meter, Iowa, I had to stop there. I didn’t realize that two years before, a push had begun to erect a museum in Feller’s honor. A lot had been donated by Branton Bank, next door, and the bank branch had a small exhibit of Feller memorabilia already in place. The small photos on this page are from that 1992 visit to Van Meter.

The museum was opened in 1995, but I didn’t have a chance to pass through central Iowa again until 1998. Before I stopped at Sec Taylor Stadium in Des Moines, I swung about 20 miles west to Van Meter and checked out the new museum.

One of the most attractive features of the museum, shown above, is the brickwork mural on the north wall, which faces the parking lot. Inside, one finds all sorts of memorabilia of one of the greatest right-handed pitchers of all time.

By the way, I finally got Bob Feller to autograph my copy of “Pitching to Win”, when he visited Skylands Park in northwest New Jersey 26-Jul-1994.

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