Why You've Never Heard of the Best Athlete Ever

sports illustrated called him the most underrated athlete of all time ranked his squad of four players the eighth best sports team of the 20th century and even though he never played baseball espn called him one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball history eddie feiner was banned from his sport multiple times for being too good struck out over 8 000 batters while blindfolded and threw 238 perfect games he was so good the united states hired him as a government agent to bring back information on foreign countries he went to north korea played on the north pole even faced fidel castro and while alive threw a fastball faster than any other major leaguer and did it underhanded he was also arguably a crazy person he was abandoned at a hospital at birth was admitted to the psych ward multiple times attempted suicide multiple times pitched every season for over 50 years traveled over 4 million miles mostly by van and refused to rest but how fast did eddie feiner actually throw how did he go from making over a hundred thousand dollars a month to forty thousand dollars a year and why eddie feiner may be the greatest athlete of all time [Music] it is safe to say that no player accomplished more in their sport than eddie feyner did in softball he traveled the world every year for over 50 years in a van playing up to 250 games in a six month span meaning that from march until september he averaged 1.4 games per day he pitched two and sometimes three games in one day and during games he didn't play he drove his team's bus to the next game this drew in over 20 million live spectators throughout his career because eddie fanner would pitch blindfolded behind his back between his legs from second base sometimes even from center field and trolled his opponents with a comedy routine while doing it on the surface eddie fanner may look like a clown traveling the country in a van but in reality he had one of the most remarkable athletic talents in the world allowing him to at one point make more money than anyone in baseball his career also took tragic turns for the worse at times making him bankrupt and extremely bitter his team was similar to the harlem globetrotters but unlike them he wasn't facing bumps he traveled city to city challenging everyone from local teams to the best softball teams in the world and beat them with only four players him a catcher a first baseman and a shortstop and literally beat the world champions of softball multiple times calling eddie fanner the best athlete ever may seem like clickbait but what other player in any other sport in history could play the best team in their sport with less than half of their teammates while blindfolded and still win eddie feiner did this and was able to for one reason he had a pitch so dominant and went so fast science can't even explain it and it all started with him playing softball in a maximum security penitentiary eddie feiner was abandoned at birth because according to him his father was his real mother's brother-in-law to avoid embarrassment eddie was taken from his mother at birth and dropped off at a hospital the next day the nurses gave eddie fanner to another woman whose newborn had just passed away she was dying of breast fever and giving a woman a baby to nurse her back to health was the only cure at the time this apparently saved the woman's life leading her to adopt eddie feyner his adopted mother was extremely religious he was not allowed to watch movies listen to radio read newspapers eat candy go to birthday parties dances eddie feiner didn't even know major league baseball or hamburgers existed until he was 15 years old by the time he was 9 he was already pitching in local adult leagues and one of them even banned him from pitching because he was so good this was not the last time eddie feiner was banned from softball when he was 17 he joined the military and soon became severely depressed he suffered several nervous breakdowns attempted suicide multiple times and was admitted to a psych ward which he describes as a rubber room for quackos saying that he belonged quote because he was wacky wanted to die had no home no father no real mother was a uneducated arrogant belligerent no good miserable excuse for a human being finer was convinced that the only way he could be cured was to find his real mother and after going through public records he found his mother was also looking for him turns out she lived in the same town he grew up in he literally mowed her lawn as a kid with both of them having zero knowledge they were related and this is when his life began turning around he moved back in with her and began dominating softball in the pacific northwest it is easy to dismiss eddie finer as one of the best athletes ever simply because of men's fast pitch softball's reputation of being a non-competitive sport but this was not the case during his prime softball got plenty of exposure in the press they reported on his team's wins his team's losses speculated what team he would go to next and called him one of the nation's best pitchers during this time softball was one of the most played sports in the country with teams and leagues sponsored by companies who paid players to compete all leading up to the national championship played in major stadiums like soldier field in chicago each year and when it comes to competitive sports in the 30s and 40s this is about as big as it gets but in 1940 eddie fehner was banned from playing in national championships just for being too dominant he had 19 different wind-ups 14 distinct delivery motions and 5 speeds which he says gave him more than a thousand different pitches not to mention he threw a fastball faster than anyone in the world eddie feiner was so good at his sport he wasn't even allowed to play it so he came up with a better idea in 1946 after his team won a game 33-0 faner told that team that they were so bad he could beat them with only four players and they took the challenge he had never played a game with four players so in preparation he asked the local prison if he could come and play the inmates and they accept it the king in his court's first game ever played in washington state penitentiary against a team full of convicts this was the first of dozens of games fanner played in prison after beating the prisoners he and his team played in their first official match and with zero promotion hundreds of people showed up eddie feiner threw a perfect game and struck out every batter he faced except for two from that point on he called his team the king in his court and sent over 3 000 letters across the country trying to set up a tour which immediately was a complete disaster out of the 3 000 plus letters he sent he only got a response from a few teams in florida the king and his court got into a station wagon anyway they slept in their car on the beach and in boxcars and when they got there they found out the american softball association had banned their teams from playing them to avoid embarrassment it rained for two weeks straight cancelling most of their scheduled games and back home eddie's family was dead broke they had their lights and water shut off because he had no money to send them but during their last scheduled game something strange happened word got around town and over 4 000 people randomly came to see them play including a promoter who set up the team's next tour a run of games in canada that finished with a match-up against the tip-top sailors they were the defending world champions of softball the next year they played the first game end in a 0-0 tied with the second game with only four players throwing blindfolded and behind his back eddie feiner shut them out and won 1-0 beating the best team in the world throughout his career eddie feiner and the king in his court beat title holding teams over 900 times beating the best team in any sport with less than half of your teammates is unheard of eddie fanner is probably the only person to ever do it and he was able to do it for one reason he had a pitch that was absolutely unhittable and according to some went faster than any other pitch stone in history and it wasn't even close but before we cover eddie fanner's insane fastball a quick word from today's sponsor this video is brought to you by current if you aspire to be as financially successful as a major league superstar current is a great place to start current is banking entirely on your phone with a current card you can shop anywhere visa is accepted there are no hidden fees no overdraft fees and no bank transfer fees and current will save you money when you use it because when you do you can earn points and receive cash back but if you prefer using cash that's cool too because you can withdraw cash from your current card at over 40 000 atms across the us with you guessed it zero atm fees current allows you to accept direct deposits cash checks and offers an insights tool that shows you how and where you're spending your money i use my current card today to buy a burrito bowl and you can too if you click the link in description and sign up so if you like saving money and you want to support the channel please get your current card today legend has it that eddie fanner could pitch a softball 114 miles per hour the record in baseball is 106 miles per hour but fanner was throwing from a softball mound which is 17 feet closer than a baseball mount giving hitters way less time to react meaning that his 114 mile per hour fastball is equivalent to a baseball pitcher going around 170 miles per hour now did eddie feiner actually throw 114 miles per hour probably not most people believe his speed was actually 104 miles per hour which is around the equivalent to a 140 mile per hour fastball from a major league mount anyone with a brain should be skeptical of this number no pitcher in eddie fanner's lifetime threw faster than this the best men's softball pitchers today only reached the 80s and faner lived in a time before radar guns however this number was reported by the washington post the new york times espn and was verified by scientists at university of windsor ontario who used military cameras to clock his fastball at 104 miles per hour fanner used his fastball and the publicity from beating the number one team in the world to book games across the country to go on a tour for basically no money he was still dead broke while doing this he also had jobs as a dock worker a cane operator a ditch digger streetcar conductor vegetable picker gas station attendant stand-up comedian played saxophone at funerals and even became a gourmet chef at a bar in an airport it took six years before he ever made a profit on tour which happened in 1955 when he made a whopping five thousand dollars but by the 60s it was reported that at his peak eddie feiner was making 100 000 a month in that decade the most any major league player made in a year was willie mays who got a salary of 135 000 in 1969. eddie fanner was becoming a borderline celebrity he was featured on the johnny carson show where he knocked a cigar out of carson's mouth with a softball pitch while blindfolded he pitched in a televised charity softball game where he struck out willie mays willie mccovey brooks robinson roberto clemente and harman killer brew in a row while pitching behind his back and between his legs he played in 104 different countries including thailand saudi arabia in the north pole the border of north and south korea played a game on the great wall of china in cuba where he faced fidel castro and the state department even sent him to tour india and pakistan so he could report what he saw back to the government while there fainter says he was offered a harem of woman for his talents but he declined the team usually played on softball fields but throughout the years played on race tracks rodeo grounds in cemeteries once played on an oil rig in norway an aircraft carrier hockey rinks football fields parking lots eddie fanner would play anywhere in any one you may think it's ridiculous to say he's better than the legends of baseball but he faced many of them including pete rose willie mays and mickey mantle and struck them all out obviously this is an unfair matchup since they were playing softball but during the early days of king and his court major league scouts would come to his games and finder was even offered to come to yankee spring training in the 50s to compete for a spot on the team but declined because he couldn't afford the trip on the surface this offer from the yankees seems like a publicity stunt but if eddie fanner was alive today i guarantee that teams across mlb would make the same offer for the sole reason that he threw a pitch faster than anybody in the world however eddie's 104 mile per hour fastball was measured during his athletic prime this did not last he would end up touring for close to 40 more years at times this got extremely dark and depressing eddie fanner himself has publicly expressed resentment and some of the stories told about his tours show that there are very few people on earth who could endure the life eddie fainer lived his team once drove 4 000 miles in 11 days that's essentially driving from new york to california and back during that 11 day span they played 11 games this was typical and eddie fainter would essentially pitch in every single game he once pitched 57 games in a row did it in 31 days and won every single game he pitched over a thousand double headers and over 200 triple headers all while taking turns driving the van and staying in motels and eddie fainter did this out of necessity in 1974 he told sports illustrated he made forty thousand dollars a year a dramatic decrease from the hundred thousand dollars a month he was supposedly making in his prime maybe one of these numbers is wrong maybe the shtick was getting old or maybe the decline in men's softball was hurting his popularity either way eddie feiner did not die a rich man he played on tv and in stadiums but the team was usually playing on a local softball field in a small town in front of crowds as small as 13 people eddie fanner once hurt his knee in a game so bad the game was canceled and the hospital doctor told him he'd be out for six months he pitched the next day and the rest of the tour he once broke his finger and pitched for six weeks with only four fingers this is impressive but also shows he really couldn't afford to miss any games on one tour after his team got into a fight in a bar their van was set on fire they literally kept driving the van for the rest of the tour their van got completely engulfed in flames another time after breaking down forcing them to rent a new one they once got stuck in a flash flood and were saved by a man driving a boat on the highway and their closest call was when the whole team survived a tornado none of this could stop the king and his court living this lifestyle takes a massive sacrifice his first wife left him and took the kids when their furniture and car got repossessed while eddie was on tour and he is open about how being on the road for six months a year put a strain on his relationship with his children eddie fanner went through hell trying to capitalize on his insane talents and this quote shows that at times it wasn't very rewarding in 1972 he told sports illustrated quote i know i'll never be a big timer because i'm not in an organized glamorous money making operation just softball who cares about softball i'm caught in a nothing game it's like being world champion nose blower his son told the same reporter that eddie thought that when he turned 40 he was going to be glorified for his accomplishments but became depressed when he realized he wasn't saying that he worries people know him as a clown driving a station wagon across the country throwing a softball behind his back when in reality he's the finest player in the history of the game and nobody cares eddie fanner was never truly glorified the way he expected but he tried basically until the day he died he stayed on tour for over 50 years into his early 70s while the major leaguers and world champion teams he dominated in his prime were replaced with casual coed teams he still dominated and trolled his opposition he was finally recognized in 2000 when he was invited to throw the first pitch in the olympic games he was 75 years old and the very next day he suffered a stroke that nearly killed him but even this couldn't stop the king he continued to go on tour to mc games cell memorabilia and despite surviving several heart attacks a stroke and battling dementia he occasionally got out of his wheelchair to throw a few pitches eddie fanner died in 2007 but not before putting up a stat line that is truly unbelievable he pitched in 11 000 games and won 9743 of them struck out over a hundred and forty thousand batters and eight thousand of them he did while he was blindfolded he threw 930 no hitters 238 perfect games played in 4 405 cities 104 countries traveled over 4 million miles and played in front of over 20 million fans eddie fainter threw a softball underhanded faster than anyone in history and faster than any baseball player during his lifetime played more games than any other professional athlete every year for over 50 years and did it with no rest while driving a van to each game using only four players while pitching behind his back between his legs from second base and beat the best teams in his sport while doing it to me this makes eddie fainer one of the most talented unbelievable and flat out best athletes of all time

Channel: Baseball Doesn't Exist

Views: 359,322

Keywords:

Id: DY283rzWvUc

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/idocrunches]

These videos aren't bad but they really feel like he's just reading Wikipedia.

[u/mizterPatato]

But I have heard of Pablo Sandoval.

[u/Doc_Benz]

King of the Hill did a nice parody of this dude.

I knew enough about him to get the reference, in 2006.

[u/Klaus_Heisler87]

Jim Thorpe has entered the chat