On June 15, 1949, Waitkus and the Phillies were at Chicago's Edgewater Hotel for a series with the Cubs. That evening, he received a request from a woman to come to her room. Though he did not recognize her name, he mistakenly thought it might be a "friend of a friend." Ruth Steinhagen answered the door and shot Waitkus once in the chest with a .22 caliber rifle.
A mentally unstable 19-year-old, Steinhagen had fallen in love with the first baseman when he played for the Cubs, though the two had never met. Waitkus underwent a series of operations to remove the bullet, which had ripped through a lung and lodged near his spine.
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1949
1949 Court Trial
He was shot by Ruth Ann Steinhagen on June 14, 1949. Waitkus was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital with a bullet in his chest. The bullet had punctured his lung and lodged next to his spine and was near his heart. He was given two transfusions but surgeons were afraid to remove the bullet because of its location. As it turned out, Waitkus had to have four operations before he was able to go to Clearwater, Florida for rehabilitation. Upon his return to baseball in 1950
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Eddie Waitkus is the baseball player who inspired the movie, The Natural, starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs. Waitkus was a top defensive first baseman and left-handed line-drive hitter. He was one of the toughest men in the league to strike-out. "He was proud of that" says his sister Stella.
Waitkus missed the remainder of the season, and many baseball observers believed he would never play again.
He spent 11 years wearing a major league uniform. Although his numbers were not Hall of Fame numbers he did have a lifetime batting average of .285.
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