MEL HARDER

He threw the first pitch at Municipal Stadium when it opened in 1932, and he threw the ceremonial first pitch at the last game there in 1994. In between he won 223 games and, as Cleveland's pitching coach, helped a bevy of Cleveland hurlers learn the fine points. Four of his charges (Feller, Lemon, Wynn, Newhouser) entered the Hall of Fame. Harder missed the two prime eras of Cleveland baseball, the late teens-early twenties when a gentlemen named Tris Speaker roamed the outfield, and the late '40s to mid '50s bunch, that included the four HOFers, as well as Garcia and Score, Doby, Rosen, Avila and Hegan.

Instead, he played in the cloudy years of the Depression and the Second World War, along with guys like Earl Averill, the Ferrell brothers, and the early Bob Feller. Melvin Leroy won 168 games in the 1930's, reaching the apex of his personal chart in 1934 and '35, when he won 20 and 22 games and was selected to the second through fifth All Star teams, winning the 1934 edition. Facing the NL's best fence busters and singles men he ran up a 13-inning scoreless streak in All Star competition. Feller began his ascent in '38 and was the dominant AL moundsman from '39 until he went in the service from '42-45, but Harder already in his early 30s, still won 17, 15 and 12 from '38-40, and had two more double digit win years during the War.

Had he played on a winning team, or in a large city he would be better known. His 223 wins are the second most by any Cleveland pitcher (Feller's 266 is tops) and Harder's 223 is one of the highest numbers of any non-HOFer, and higher than many who are in). A low ball pitcher he averaged about 3 strikeouts or walks per nine innings and yielded only 161 homers in 20 years; he kept the ball in play and usually on the ground. He pitched in the hard-hitting '30s (the American League's composite average was .288 in 1930 and the collective ERA was 4.65!) and Harder's 1933 ERA of 2.95 was the AL's lowest, so his lifetime 3.80 ERA doesn't mean the same as a pitcher from the Mathewson/Johnson era, or the Gibson/Koufax epoch. He was the kind of guy we look back at and say, "Now there was a pitcher. Every year you knew he was going to be on the Indians, would have a decent to good year would probably be injury-free, just give him the ball and let him go." Both as pitching coach and pitcher he was sad to have "a camera in his head," so adapt was he at picking up mechanical flaws and pitching flubs.