Eddie Feigner

Eddie Feigner in the early 1980s.

Eddie "The King" Feigner (March 25, 1925 – February 9, 2007) was an American softball player. Feigner (pronounced FAY-ner) was born in Walla Walla, Washington as Myrle Vernon King. He first assembled his four-man team, known as "The King and His Court," in 1946 and took on all comers, first in the Pacific Northwest and then around the country; Feigner retired from pitching after suffering a stroke in 2000 but continued to tour with his team, acting as emcee and telling stories while the team played.

The King and His Court touring team played over ten thousand softball games in a hundred countries since the late 1940s and achieved widespread fame similar to that of the Harlem Globetrotters. Feigner's meticulous records claim 9,743 victories, 141,517 strikeouts, 930 no-hitters and 238 perfect games. The Washington Post described him as "the greatest softball pitcher who ever lived."

On February 18, 1967, Feigner appeared in a celebrity charity softball game against many Major League players. In the game Feigner struck out Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Maury Wills, and Harmon Killebrew all in a row.[1]

Feigner died in February 2007 in Huntsville, Alabama. He is buried in the Huntsville Memory Gardens Cemetery.[2]

"The King and His Court" was a four-man team: pitcher, catcher, first baseman, and shortstop. When asked why the team had four members, Feigner answered that they couldn't play with three: if all three got on base, there would be no one available to come to bat.

The team was satirized on a 2006 episode of the Fox sitcom King of the Hill entitled "You Gotta Believe (In Moderation)" by a team called The Ace of Diamonds and His Jewels.

References

  1. ↑ World's Strangest Baseball Stories. Watermill Press. 1993. p. 59. ISBN 0-8167-2850X.
  2. ↑ Eddie Feigner

External links