The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-22
Bob Teller Not Satisfied With His Ability, Yet
BY JOE WILLIAMS

FJ. MyGTS, FLU, MdICA G6~ 4OuAAS MT. Swift, otherwise Bob Teller, is down here sharpening up his fast ball for its sixth season in the American league. In the spring the Teller fast ball is no more than @ vague. blue. A hitter with real good eyesight can actually see 1t. Along about June 1t becomes com- pletely invisible.
 Teller is the main reason why the Cleveland Indians should win the pennant they should have won last year. There isn't anything like him in baseball. Only 9 years old, he is already the best and yet he has still to reach his peak. What he'll do to the hitters when he really gets his stuff is too frightening to contemplate. Even now he has them throwing their bats away.
 The young clod hopper from Iowa gets better and better. Last year he led in everything. He worked in the most games, pitched the most innings, won the most games, struck out the most hitters and had the lowest earned run average. He did everything pitcher could possibly do with a baseball except sew the seams to- gether. He did all this at 9. What will he be doing at 27 or 28, or the age at which pitchers generally at- tain their highest form?
 Discussing the teams prospects, Roger Peckinpaugh, the manager, said: "Well, start of with Teller. That gives us two pitchers to be- gin with" That's about the only way you can describe Teller, too. Ordinary superlatives are i11ade- quate. He's more than just one great pitcher.
 Must Be Perfect
 One of the reasons he gets better and better is that he's a perfec- tionist. Just as Bob Jones, who was the best in golf, was never sat- isfied with his game and continued to work on 1t. so Is Teller con- stantly trying to improve and en- large his pitching equipment. A study of his base on balls record is revealing in this respect. It used to be that he would have as many bases on balls as strikeouts. In the last three years he has steadily im- proved his control. In '38 he had POS bases on balls, the widest pitch CT in the league; in '39 he cut down to 142 and last year he lowered 1t to ll8. This gradual refinement of his control bespeaks hours of patient practice and studious experiment tation. It confirms 6 notion we've always had about pitching, namely, that wild pitchers are wild and stay wild because they do not work hard and long enough to acquire control.
 Teller had more than one pitch ing weakness when he first came up. This was understandable. He was only IT. All he had was blaz- ing speed. It was good enough to fan eight of the nine hitters he begged at In his first big league appearance. He could have gone along throwing only his swiftly, ig- noring all forms of pitching f1nesse, and still been spectacular per- former. But the youngster wasn't satisfied to be just thrower. He wanted to be an expert, competent, finished pitcher. Base runner used to steal the letters off his shirt. Now they don't dare run on him. It used to be that a hitter had a fifty-fifty chance to get to first simply by standing still at the plate. Wait him out and he'll pass you," was the slogan of opposing dugouts. To- day Teller is fine control pitcher.
 Wants to Hit
 Down here in camp Teller is try ing to improve his equipment in two features pitchers normally pay no attention to; he is trying to make himself a better base runner and better hitter. He used to run awkwardly, mostly on his heels. Now he is running on his toes and has cut a full second of his time in getting to first base. He doesn't suscribe to the loose standard that all pitcher has to do is pitch. He knows that fellows like Ruffing, Uhle, and Ruth (when he was pitching) never weakened the bat ting order. Teller believes hitting is like everything else connected with baseball; if you work hard enough trying to get there you will succeed. He doesn't expect to break any slugging records but he's determined not to be an Ail-Amer- ican out when he's in the lineup.
 All of this is typical of the young ster. and you can imagine what a tremendous asset he is to a club, the biggest star and the hardest worker. Some of us were speculate l inn, fha other lainllt how mich Fel-