Baseball's Natural The Story of Eddie Waitkus John Theodore Foreword by Ira Berkow   September 2002 cloth, 0-8093-2450-4, $25.00t 176 pages, 15 b&w photos, 6 x 9 Baseball / Biography   Writing Baseball Richard Peterson, series editor   “Wonderful. . . . 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.” —Booklist (starred review)   “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. . . . [T]hese inconsistencies render him interesting, and Theodore tells his story well.” —Library Journal   “The name Waitkus has probably ceased to have much resonance among baseball fans. But this is what Theodore’s sensitive and well researched book has managed to cure. In a strange way, Waitkus emerges as a lost hero of sorts, a man worthy of being memorialized in this book.” —Ray Robinson, author of Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, and coauthor of Pennants and Pinstripes: A 100 Year History of the New York Yankees   “For anyone who loves baseball, Theodore’s Baseball’s Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus is a must read. . . . It has all the elements of a great novel.” —Steve Neal, Chicago Sun-Times 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.    New York Times sportswriter and 1988 Pulitzer Prize nominee Ira Berkow provides the foreword to this compelling rediscovery of baseball’s natural.   Currently a freelance writer, native Chicagoan John Theodore has served as a reporter, writer, editor, and television and radio producer for United Press International, WGN and WGN-TV.     An Excerpt . . . The girl behind the door—young, tall, and attractive, her long, curling back hair held in perfect place by a flashy pair of studded combs—reconstructed her encounter with Eddie Waitkus for Chicago police:  “So I went to bed and after I had fallen asleep I heard the telephone ring and I answered it and it was Waitkus.” She said she asked him to give her a chance to get dressed, and when he arrived at the door a half hour later, she thanked him for coming. “I know it’s late at night for an athlete and all. Come on in.” She said Waitkus briskly walked past her into the tiny room and sat down in a small armchair near the room’s only window, as she went into a closet. “I have a surprise for you,” she said from behind the door. She told police Waitkus was shocked when she came out waving a rifle in his face. A machine gunner in four Pacific landings, Eddie Waitkus had faced death many times in World War II. And now a young girl in a white lace blouse owned his fate in a Chicago hotel room. “What goes on here?” he asked. His back stiffened, and his face broke out in a twisted smile. “Is this some kind of joke? What have I done?” The instincts that had kept him alive in war, the reactions that never failed him on the baseball field, vanished. The yellow flash tore through his chest and shoved him against the wall. “I was so excited I could not control myself,” the girl told police. “And then he slumped to the floor.”  And the girl with the long black curls knelt by his side and held his hand on her lap.