1952 (3) Bowman Players of Note

Robin Roberts, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Ralph Kiner, Warren Spahn and Bob Feller were great players, and are in the Hall of Fame. Bobby Thomson hit “the shot heard ’round the world” off Ralph Branca in 1951 to beat the Dodgers and win the pennant for the New York Giants. In 1949, Eddie Waitkus was shot in a hotel room by a nineteen year old girl named Ruth Ann Steinhagen. The .22 caliber bullet barely missed his heart, but he recovered and was able to resume his career with the Phillies. Ruth Steinhagen was declared insane, never went to prison, and went on to live a quiet life until 2012, when she passed away at the age of 83. The shooting of Eddie Waitkus served as the inspiration for Bernard Malamud to write The Natural in 1952 about Roy Hobbs, which became a movie starring Robert Redford in 1984.