The "Baseball Annie" That Shot Roy Hobbs

Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...

It was revealed this past week that Ruth Steinhagen passed away in December. Have you ever heard of her, are you wondering how this fits into the world of sports?

Ruth was a young lady, growing up in Chicago and carrying a mad crush on Eddie Waitkus, first baseman for the Cubs. Like any teenager with a crush, Steinhagen performed all the rituals. She slept with a picture of Waitkus under her pillow, decorated her room with additional pictures, and even set a place for him at the dinner table in hopes he may come by.

The crush proceeded and was harmless as Waitkus enjoyed a fine season in 1948, hitting .295 and smacking a career high 7 home runs. Despite this, the Cubs traded Waitkus to the Phillies after the season.

This is when the story turned to obsession and insanity as young Ruth Steinhagen decided she could not be without Eddie on the local nine and made up her mind to kill him.

In June of 1949, the Phillies traveled to Wrigley to face the Cubs and Steinhagen checked into a room at the Edgewater Beach Hotel where the Phillies were staying. One night after a game, she lured Eddie to her room with a note promising a surprise and an important matter to discuss. After Waitkus sat down, she retrieved a rifle hidden in a closet and shot him in the chest, narrowly missing his heart.

Newspapers across the nation wrote stories and portrayed Steinhagen as a crazed "Baseball Annie" which was the term for groupie and the influence behind Annie Savoy in the movie Bull Durham. Ruth was declared insane by a judge and spent three years in a mental hospital. At that point, doctors determined she had regained her sanity and released her. Waitkus declined to press charges at this time and Steinhagen was free to live the rest of her life.

She spent that time in Chicago, remaining very private, living with her sister and working in an office for 35 years. She died of natural causes this past December.

Waitkus survived and recovered but was never really the same again unlike the legend he inspired who reached even more greatness after being shot, Roy Hobbs.

This incident inspired Bernard Malamud to pen a novel in 1952 entitled "The Natural" and create the legendary character who was shot before his major league career started but recovered to become a star. Robert Redford then portrayed the great Roy Hobbs in 1984 as the film version of "The Natural" became a hit.

So if not for a young, star crossed teenage girl luring a major league ballplayer to her hotel room for an insane crime of passion, we may never have experienced the enduring legend of Roy Hobbs, the Natural.

All this because I know more about nothing...