The original Roy Hobbs

Billy Jurges

Long before the fictional Roy Hobbs takes a bullet from a brunette in a hotel room and 17 years before the quite real Eddie Waitkus suffers the same fate in Chicago, we have the sordid, ammo-filled tale of Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges.

Just like Hobbs and Waitkus, the 24-year-old Jurges is a rising baseball star in 1932 when he becomes involved with a seemingly nice young lady who, well, just happens to be packing heat.

Ballplayer, brunette and bullets meet 92 years ago today during an argument in Jurges’ room at Chicago’s Hotel Carlos, a hotel three blocks north of Wrigley Field.

There, argument turns to scuffle and scuffle turns to gunfire as 21-year-old singer and would-be girlfriend Violet Popovich Valli fires a couple of shots from her .25 caliber handgun that strike Jurges – one grazing the little finger of his left hand, the other entering his chest and promptly ricocheting off a rib before exiting from his right shoulder.

But, after the police sort out the details, Jurges declines to press charges.

Exactly what Waitkus does in 1949 – when a crazed fan named Ruth Ann Steinhagen shoots him in the chest with a rifle.

While Steinhagen ends up spending three years in a mental hospital, Valli goes on to sign a 22-week contract to sing in Chicago-area nightclubs and theaters, where she is promoted as “Violet (What I Did For Love) Valli – the Most Talked About Girl in Chicago.”

As for Jurges, he turns out to be a fast healer as he returns to the Cubs’ lineup only 16 days after Valli shoots him and promptly singles in his first at-bat off Pittsburgh’s Steve Swetonic in the Cubs’ 3-1 loss to the Pirates during a Friday afternoon game at Forbes Field.

Jurges plays for another 15 seasons in the majors with the Cubs and Giants before retiring after the 1947 season as a .258 lifetime hitter with three All-Star Game selections and three World Series appearances, including the 1932 Series in which he hits .364 in three games against the New York Yankees.