Win-Loss 35-35 Role Baseball player Name Harry Feldman | Strikeouts 254 Earned run average 3.80 | |
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Died March 16, 1962, Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States | ||
Harry "Hank" Feldman (November 10, 1919, New York City – March 16, 1962, Fort Smith, Arkansas) was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the New York Giants from 1941 to 1946. In 1962, at age 42, the 6' 0", 175 lb (79 kg). right-hander had a massive heart attack while tending his boat at Lake Tenkiller, Oklahoma, and died.
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Early life
Feldman was Jewish, the son of a Romanian Jewish father and a Polish Jewish mother. Feldman attended Clark Junior High School in the Bronx.
Minor league career
Feldman pitched for the Blytheville Giants of the Northeast Arkansas League in 1938. He had a 13–1 record and 2.02 ERA, both the best in the league that year. He was moved to the Fort Smith Giants of the Western Association, where he was 7–7 with a 3.98 ERA in 1938. In 1939 his record was 25–9. With the Jersey City Giants in 1940, Feldman was 5–13 with a 3.64 ERA. In 1941 he went 14–16 with a 3.42 ERA.
Major league career
Feldman did the bulk of his pitching for the Giants during the World War II years (1942–45).
He won his first major league game in his second start, a 4–0 shutout over the Boston Braves in the second game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds (September 21, 1941).
The Army declined to enlist him due to evidence of his having had TB as a child.
In 1944 he was 9th in the NL with 40 games pitched.
In 1945 he was 6th in the NL in games started (30) and shutouts (3), and 9th in innings (217.7) and batters faced (933). He was 12–13, with a 3.27 ERA.
His career totals include a 35–35 record, 143 games pitched, 78 starts, 22 complete games, 6 shutouts, 28 games finished, and 3 saves. In 666 innings pitched he struck out 254, walked 300, and had an earned run average of 3.80.
In 1946 he joined what became a total of 27 major league players, including Max Lanier, Mickey Owens, Vern Stephens and George Hausmann, in jumping to the "outlaw" Mexican League. Feldman signed with the Veracruz Blues. The following year he played in Havana, Cuba. In 1949 he pitched for a while in the Provincial League for Sherbrooke, Quebec, and then moved to San Francisco where he pitched his last two seasons with the San Francisco Seals, going 6–9 with a 4.31 ERA in 1949 and 11–16 with a 4.38 ERA in 1950. He retired at the end of that season.
Feldman was 8th lifetime in ERA of all Jewish major league pitchers through 2010, behind among others Sandy Koufax and Ken Holtzman.