THE LAST BARNSTORMERS: COUNTDOWN FOR THE KING & HIS COURT

Decades before LeBron James claimed to be King, there was another King. A King who ruled his sport unlike any other athlete, crisscrossing the country, defending his title the old-fashioned way - by taking on all comers and beating them.

Eddie Feigner was born to hurl a softball, and he wowed millions of spectators around the world for more than five decades. He was a true American original, a barnstormer second-to-none, the greatest softball player ever to walk God’s green earth.

He was truly The King, and His Court was his team, if you could call a pitcher, a catcher, a first baseman and a shortstop a team. Many a nineman team didn’t believe it when the squad would show up in town. But they soon became believers when the foursome beat them, which was most of the time.

Since 1946, The King and His Court have played before more than 20,000,000 spectators in all 50 states and in more than 100 countries, traveling more than 4,000,000 miles to do so.

Feigner’s amazing arm threw its final pitch to open the women’s softball competition at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. He suffered a stroke the next day and would never pitch again. The consummate showman still emceed for The King and His Court until a year prior to his death. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 81, having passed the torch to a new generation of barnstormers. In his career, Feigner pitched more than 10,000 games, winning 8,270 of them. He spun 238 perfect games, 930 no-hitters, 1,916 shutouts and struck out an astounding 141,517 batters. He struck out nearly 9,000 batters pitching blindfolded.

This is the final summer for Feigner’s legacy: The King in His Court are counting down the final 100 games of its 65-year existence. Game 76 on the list is at the Hoyt Lakes Water Carnival at 5 p.m. Saturday. The foursome is now headlined by pitcher Rich Hoppe, who will come to town with catcher Charlie Dobbins, shortstop Ron Davenport and first baseman Russ Fittje. They will play an exhibition game against a team of local high school athletes and softball players, bringing with them their trademark red, white and blue uniforms and schtick: amazing pitching, comedy and family fun (think Harlem Globetrotters in spikes).

“For the oldtimers, we’re taking it home for Eddie,” said Dobbins, the women’s softball coach at Peace College in Raleigh, N.C., who has played with the team since the early 1990s.

“For the newcomers we’re a true American barnstormin’ show. As we retire The Court, this is about honoring Eddie and everything he did, the amount of joy he brought to people. It’s great to hear the stories from people about the first time they saw The Court and how it affected their lives. For me, I was 12, and I was awestruck.

“We see grandparents, parents and children, and it’s really overwhelming to see the impact he had. He was a great showman, a true piece of Americana.”

With only 25 games to go, it will be the last chance for northern Minnesota fans to catch the legendary team, which Sports Illustrated named No. 8 in its list of favorite teams of the 20th century.

From an orphan to a King

Feigner was abandoned at birth on the steps of St. Mary’s Catholic Hospital in Walla Walla, Wash. He grew up Myrle Vernon King (he took his professional name from a friend and protector who died young and his real mother’s maiden name when he started his softball career). When he was kicked out of school as a teen, he joined the Marines and fought in World War II.

A softball prodigy, he pitched on men’s softball teams from the time he was 9 and was so good that he was banned from pitching in Walla Walla leagues as a teen. When he returned from the war, a mixed-up, scarred young man, his life was transformed when he was reunited with his birth mother, a woman he had mowed lawns for when neither of them knew who the other was. And he became a softball phenomenon. Never shy about talking about his game, after beating an Oregon team 33-0 one night, he responded to a taunt about “his ancestors” by saying “I’d beat you with just my catcher, but you’d probably walk both of us.” The other team agreed to allow him a shortstop and first baseman and The King and His Court was born. In the first game, Feigner twirled a perfect game in a 7-0 victory, striking out all but two batters and the rest is history.

Feigner was the pitcher for most of the 50-plus years he was active with 35 different players comprising his Court, including his son Eddie, Jr. and wife Anne Marie. The team played sometimes as many as 250 games a year, and Feigner gave as much as half his earnings to various charities, played for numerous charities, hosted hundreds of free clinics and performed countless USO shows for the U.S. military - “three times as many as Bob Hope,” according to Dobbins. He struck out batters pitching blindfolded, from his knees, through his legs, behind his back, from second base and even from center fi eld. He claimed he once struck out a man on one pitch: “He swung and missed three times at one changeup.” According to a 1972 article in SI, he had 19 windups, 14 deliveries, five speeds and 1,300 different pitches.

He had a figure-eight windmill with quarter-speed outraise pitch and a whirligig with a cross-fi re at three-quarters speed. As part of the show, he’d pitch behind his back into his own glove and have befuddled umpires call a strike rather than admit they didn’t see the pitch. His pitched was clocked at 104 mph - or according to some reports, 114 - faster than any baseball pitcher had ever thrown. Feigner plucked a cigar out of Johnny Carson’s mouth pitching blindfolded on The Tonight Show and appeared on numerous other shows, including a number of times on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

In a televised charity game at Dodger Stadium in 1964, Feigner struck out Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Brooks Robinson, Willie McCovey, Maury Wills and Harmon Killebrew - in succession. During the 1981 baseball strike, he beat a team that included several active major leaguers in a game at the Silverdome at age 56. Feigner pitched before sold out crowds in Yankee Stadium and in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. About the only place he didn’t pitch was the moon, where his riseball would have been devastating. Sports Illustrated called him the most underrated athlete of his time - and that was when he was in his late 40s. An ESPN baseball editor called him one of the top fi ve pitchers of all-time, along with Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, et al. He could have played pro baseball, but softball was always his fi rst love, and besides, “I get to see the world.”

Visiting Virginia

The King and His Court played in Virginia in 1955 and again in 1958 and returned yet again in 1972. Joe Sklasz was a fresh-faced high school graduate in ’58 when he was picked to play against The King and His Court along with a number of other all-stars from the Virginia fast-pitch softball league. “Boy, could he throw the ball,” Sklasz said. “I think he was throwing it 106. Our catcher, Jim Rodorigo, begged (Feigner) to let him catch him. (Feigner) fi nally agreed and put him in position and told him, ‘whatever you do, don’t move your glove an inch’ and went out and whipped one right in the glove and almost knocked him over.

“I remember that Jim Sauter and Bob Tapani got hits off him and maybe one other guy, but that’s about it.”

Sklasz, who has worked with and developed some of the best high school girls softball pitchers in the area over the past 25 years, taught himself to pitch by emulating the grips pictured and the tips offered in Feigner’s program from the ’58 game. Sklasz also played in the ’76 game, during which Jack Carlson hit a grand slam against the King. He got back to the bench afterwards and said, “Take me out. I’m done. I don’t want to face him again.”

Despite the grand slam, the King and His Court still prevailed 5-4. “He had a pitch that would start inside corner at the knees and cross the plate outside corner at the letters,” Sklasz said. “He had pinpoint accuracy. And he was a great showman. Hands down, he was the best softball player I’ve ever seen. By far.”

The Return of the King

It’s unclear when the last time the barnstorming softball squad last visited the Iron Range prior to last year when they played in front of a few thousand people at the Hoyt Lakes Water Carnival.

Dobbins chuckled as he remembered that day.

“We had a blast there,” he said. “A couple of us went to the pancake breakfast in the morning and we saw that the beer tent opened up at 8 a.m. I said, ‘well, this is going to be a rowdy crowd.’ We rode in the parade with a couple of the (queen candidates), who were probably wondering who we were. When we got to the field, it was a hoot. We took some heat like we always do, but I’ve got a million comebacks.

“We stayed at the lodge (at Giants Ridge). That’s a beautiful area. It was a fun trip.”

The team just finished a stretch of 23 games and 7,300 miles in 28 days. They played in tiny Lee, Nebraska before a crowd of 300 and in front of several thousand against the Chicago Bandits, a pro women’s softball team that includes well-known Olympic hero Jennie Finch.

They will be in Hoyt Lakes to start the final quarter of the schedule of their 65th and final season.

“Hoyt Lakes gets to be a part of history,” Dobbins said. “There’s always going to be a connection with Hoyt Lakes as part of our final tour, just like there will be with Central Park, Chicago and Lee, Neb. You won’t ever see another show like this one again where you get taken back to 1965.

“It’s going to be an interesting final month. The last couple of weeks, ESPN is going to be tagging along with us as we finish it off for Eddie.”

While the Court will be retired, Dobbins and Hoppe will continue with presentations for young people under the name King of Diamonds, which they started doing more than a decade ago.

“We’re going to go into neighborhoods, communities, schools and youth centers and spread the good word,” Dobbins said. “We talk to kids about making good choices and about when those times in your life comes and you have to make a decision that’s going to affect the rest of your life.

“We want to leave a lasting impression, to instill old-school values that seem to be lost today.”

Hoppe is an inspirational story himself, having overcome drug and alcohol addictions a quarter century ago. He nearly lost his left arm – his pitching arm – in Vietnam, but he taught himself to throw right-handed, and got so good that the Phillies offered him a pro contract to pitch softball style. He throws many similar trick pitches that made Feigner famous.

The King and His Court will retire in style with a final game in Walla Walla, “where Eddie and all the boys (the original Court) grew up playing.”

“It’s only fitting to retire it for Eddie where it started,” Dobbins said. “He was the original King. We need to have a talk with LeBron James about that.”

Brian Miller is a long-time sports writer and lives in Eveleth, MN.