Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus (Writing Baseball) [Hardcover]

John Theodore (Author), Ira Berkow (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Writing Baseball | Publication Date: September 9, 2002

Baseball’s Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus is John Theodore’s true account of the slick-fielding first baseman who played for the Cubs and Phillies in the 1940s and became an immortalized figure in baseball lore as the inspiration for Roy Hobbs in Bernard Malamud’s The Natural.

 

The son of Lithuanian immigrants, Edward Stephen Waitkus (1919–1972) grew up in Boston and served in the Pacific during World War II. His army service in some of the war’s bloodiest combat earned him four Bronze Stars. Following the war, Waitkus became one of the most popular players of his era. As a rookie he led the Cubs in hitting in 1946 and quickly established himself as one of the best first basemen in the National League. To the disappointment of fans, the Cubs traded Waitkus to the Phillies in December of 1948. When he returned to Chicago in a Philadelphia uniform in June of the following year, he was hitting .306 and seemed destined for the All Star team.

 

On the night of June 14 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Waitkus’s bright career took an infamously tragic turn. He received a cryptic note summoning him to meet a young fan, Ruth Steinhagen. When Waitkus entered her hotel room, she proclaimed, “I have a surprise for you,” and then she just as quickly shot him in the chest. Steinhagen, then only nineteen, was one of the many young women—called “Baseball Annies”–who were fanatic about the game and its players, though her obsession proved more dangerous than most. A criminal court indicted Steinhagen and confined her to a state mental hospital for nearly three years.

 

Waitkus survived the shooting, made an inspirational return to baseball in 1950, and led the Phillies to the World Series. While Waitkus triumphed over his assault, he could not conquer his private demons. Depression stemming from the attack led to a severe problem with alcohol, a failed marriage, and a nervous breakdown. Waitkus found some happiness in his final summers working with youngsters at the Ted Williams baseball camp. Cancer claimed him in 1972, just days after his fifty-third birthday.

 

Through interviews with Waitkus’s family, fellow servicemen, former ballplayers, and childhood friends, and aided by fifteen photographs, Theodore chronicles Waitkus’s remarkable comeback as well as the difficult years following his eleven-year major league career.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Eddie Waitkus, whose ill fortune it was to be the inspiration for Roy Hobbs in Bernard Malamud's The Natural, was both an anomaly and an enigma. A thinker in a profession populated by doers, he was a slick-fielding singles hitter at a position (first base) usually inhabited by power hitters. He wrote poetry expressing deep emotions but was so self-contained that his own daughter professed not to know whether those feelings were really his own or mere poetic device. He loved and was loved by the ladies but was not a satyr, as are many professional athletes, yet he was shot by a crazed female fan in her Chicago hotel room. He was not a rowdy drunk given to barroom brawls and still he drank himself out of baseball. A career .285 hitter who despite initial accolades never led the league in any major fielding category, he was a comparatively minor figure in baseball history. But these inconsistencies render him interesting, and freelancer Theodore tells his story well. Recommended for mid-sized to large public library baseball collections. Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Eddie Waitkus' place in baseball history is secured by two footnotes: he was shot in a Chicago hotel room by a baseball "Annie," and he was the player upon whom Bernard Malamud based his classic novel The Natural. This wonderful biography portrays Waitkus as an elegant, gentle man who was haunted as much by his World War II combat experience as he was by his shooting at the hand of Ruth Steinhagen in 1949. When Waitkus, a good but not great player, resumed his career after surviving heavy combat in the South Pacific, he had the misfortune to cross paths with a disturbed young woman who had become obsessive in her pursuit of him. He nearly died from the shooting but mounted a comeback that thrilled the nation. After a few more years as a player, he retired to what he hoped would be a satisfying business career. It was not. Haunted by his memories and frustrated by his lack of success, he turned to alcohol. In his later years, his primary joy was working summers at Ted Williams' baseball camp. There wasn't a Nobel Prize at the end of Waitkus' journey, but readers may find a similarity between him and Jonathan Nash of A Beautiful Mind. Both were good men who struggled mightily against demons they did not create. Thanks to Theodore's meticulous research and passionate writing, perhaps Waitkus will rise above his footnote status, at least for a time. This could be the sleeper of the sports publishing season. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (September 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809324504
• ISBN-13: 978-0809324507
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Retired Chicago journalist John Theodore is the author of two non-fiction books. BASEBALL'S NATURAL: THE STORY OF EDDIE WAITKUS was named "one of the 12 best sports books of 2003" by Booklist. EVIL SUMMER: BABE LEOPOLD, DICKIE LOEB, AND THE KIDNAP-MURDER OF BOBBY FRANKS received an Illinois Historical Society award. In his latest book, BASEBALL...and OTHER ROMANTIC LIFE LESSONS, Theodore weaves fantasy and fact in a reflective and historical collection of essays, columns and short stories. In his blog, MID-CENTURY MUSING (midcenturymusing.com), fictitious Chicago newspaper columnist Sam Garfield gives readers a reflective and historical look at life in the 1950s.

Currently in manuscript, STREETCARS AND SPUTNIKS, historical fiction, provides a close-up, year-long look at the events that shaped a city and its people:

Sam Garfield couldn't look into the huge man's eyes. What do you ask a father who has lost all his kids in a fire?

It's January 1958, and a rash of tenement fires have killed 10 people in a Chicago slum belt. Garfield, a veteran newspaper columnist, interviews a man paralyzed by guilt because he was "on Forty-Seventh Street, catin' 'round, dancin' an' drinkin'" while pre-dawn flames engulfed his six children. Garfield understands all too well that this man will never outlive his past.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Garfield's fractured past continues to haunt his middle age melancholy: As a teenager, his mentally ill twin brother puts a shotgun to his throat while he sleeps; and when a secret illness is revealed, his major league baseball career ends abruptly. STREETCARS AND SPUTNIKS is a series of linked stories that tell the tales of Chicagoans whose lives intersect with Garfield: the lonely forty-year-old celebrity-crazed Andy Frain usher who lives with his infirmed mother and aunt, and spends his weekend nights on the roof of a North Shore hotel looking for Soviet planes; a young, talented photographer who Garfield takes under his wing but soon discovers he is sickened by his profession; a neighborhood destroyed by a December fire that kills 92 children at a Catholic grade school; a young girl who survives the fire by jumping out of her 2nd-floor classroom window, but must carry the guilt of survival when a nun tells her, "God has taken the good little angels, and left the bad children here."

STREETCARS AND SPUTNIKS is the year-long story of a myriad of heartbreaking urban voices, chronicled by the city's leading journalist, who stays detached from the people he covers, as well as those closest to him. Set in 1958 Chicago, fictitious characters move through a tapestry of historical events and themes. Sam Garfield's Chicago Mirror columns give STREETCARS AND SPUTNIKS its historical accuracy and integrity.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Man Fades Away..., May 15, 2003

By 

Dennis Brislen (Omaha, Ne USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus (Writing Baseball) (Hardcover)

It is common knowledge among baseball historians that Eddie waitkus provided the basis for "The Natural", a short story and film success.

The true story of Waitkus is far more tragic than the fictional version. This book successfully portrays the life of this somewhat obscure ballplayer. John Theodore does a fine job of researching Waitkus' life and career.

He also does a fine job of covering the little known details surrounding the woman who shot Waitkus on that fateful evening at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago in 1949. Her name is Ruth Steinhagen and her semi-successful reentry into society after release from an Illinois mental institution is chronicled.

It is one of the saddest stories ever in the world of sports.

Waitkus, who survived 2 years of intense combat in the South Pacific during WWII, returns from the war to resume a baseball career which sees him headed for superstardom, only to fall to a crazed females obsession with him.

Waitkus played in 1946,'47 and'48 with the Chicago Cubs. He was an All-Star and .300 hitter. Many considered him the best fielding first baseman in the game.

His trade to the Phillies for the 1949 season was considered a coup for the Phils. He was exactly what the youthful "Whiz Kids" needed; a quality veteran who could hit, field and lend class to the organization. He was hitting over .300 and leading the All-Star balloting in the National League when disaster struck in early June.

His subsequent recovery and contribution to the Phillies pennant winning 1950 team was the "feelgood" story of 1950. It wasn't to last however.

Waitkus was pursued by the residual demons of the shooting and latent WWII memories. He slumped in 1951 and, always a drinker, began to smoke and drink more heavily. Even marriage and a subsequent family which he loved dearly failed to assuage his demons. His physical skills reduced by the shooting, his continued late hour drinking contributing to his weakened condition, Waitkus never was able to fulfill his potential and by 1955 he was out of baseball.

Then the serious problems began.

Unable to find a job that satisfied him, he drifted from one job to another, finally ending up living in a rooming house near Harvard University and working the summers at what he knew best; an instructor at Ted Williams baseball camps. The end came suddenly in 1972 when a weakend Waitkus died from lung cancer at age 52.

In spite of the tragic aspects of Waitkus' life, Theodore successfully highlights the fact that Waitkus was a genuinely good guy; highly respected by all of his teammates, his family and Ted Williams. And most of all, the young campers he taught baseball to in the final years of his life. Many of them did not know he had played in the majors. They just knew that he knew a lot about baseball and that he loved working with them.

Theodore can be faulted only in failing to provide a good bibliography...otherwise this is an excellent biography and an important contribution to baseball history

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Man Who Had A Hard Life, September 7, 2003

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus (Writing Baseball) (Hardcover)

Author John Theodore has provided the reader with the most detailed account of the 1949 shooting of former Philadelphia Phillies' baseball star Eddie Waitkus by an obsessed 19 year-old female fan in a Chicago hotel. At the time of the shooting Waitkus was the leading vote getter among first basemen for the upcoming All-Star game to be played in Brooklyn, New York. Waitkus managed to overcome the attempt on his life and became an integral member of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies Whiz Kids team that went on to win the National League pennant only to lose the World Series to the New York Yankees in four straight, but hard fought, close games. Waitkus's career began to wind down a couple of years later as he was waived out of the National League, and became a member of the 1954 Baltimore Orioles who were playing their first year in Crabtown after moving from St. Louis. His playing time was very limited and in 1955 the Orioles cut him loose, and he once again returned for a brief period of time with the Phillies. The post baseball years were not kind to Waitkus who, like so many other players during this time, had no training beyond baseball. He tried a job in sales, but hated it. He fought the demons of alcohol, and the memories he had of World War II when he fought in the Pacific in addition to the memory of the evening in 1949 when he nearly lost his life in the Chicago hotel room. He did find happiness as a batting instructor in a Ted Williams baseball camp for young boys. Here he was doing something he loved among kids who shared his devotion to the game. Eddie Waitkus died in 1973 at the age of 53 from esophageal and lung cancer which was most likely brought on by his many years of heavy smoking. I did find a few spelling errors in the book along with the fact that the song Take Me Out to the Ball Game was written in 1908, not 1909, as the book mentions. If you associate the name of Eddie Waitkus only with the unfortunate shooting incident, this book will provide you with additional information about the man's career in addition to details regarding that unfortunate evening in 1949.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Book For True Baseball History Fans, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus (Writing Baseball) (Hardcover)

This book really tells the true story of Eddie Waitkus. If you are a true baseball history fan this book is a must for your collection. At waitkus.org you will find more information about Eddie Waitkus. Read the book, visit the website and you will get to know the man as well as the baseball player.