Feigner, Eddie
Softball
b. March 26, 1925, Walla Walla, WA
d. Feb. 9, 2007
Abandoned as infant, Feigner was named Myrle King by his adopted family. He was a trouble-making child who was thrown out of school in his early teens. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II, but was given a medical discharge after suffering a nervous breakdown.
He decided to start a new life by taking a new name--Feigner from his mother and Eddie from a friend. And he discovered he had a talent: He could pitch a softball faster than anyone. In 1946, he organized a four-man team, taking on all comers in the Pacific Northwest and in 1950 he named the team "The King and His Court" and began touring the country, playing against nine-man teams.
Feigner, whose pitches have been clocked at 104 miles an hour, entertained crowds by pitching at times from behind his back and through his legs. In more than fifty years of barnstorming, his team traveled more than 3 million miles and played before more than 20 million spectators.
In 2000, he threw out the first pitch before the women's softball competition at the Sydney Olympics. A day later, he suffered a stroke that ended his playing career.
Feigner pitched in more than 10,000 games, amassing 930 no-hitters, 238 perfect games, 1,916 shutouts, and 141,517 strikeouts.