Ruth Ann Steinhagen

Ruth Ann Steinhagen (December 23, 1929 – December 29, 2012) was an American woman who shot and nearly killed Eddie Waitkus, star first baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies, on June 14, 1949 in one of the first instances of what later became known as stalker crimes. The incident is one of the inspirations for the 1952 baseball book The Natural, made into a film in 1984.

Steinhagen was the daughter of parents who had emigrated from Berlin, Germany in their early 20s. Born Ruth Catherine Steinhagen, she adopted the middle name Ann at some point in her youth.

A 19-year-old typist at the time of the incident, Steinhagen had developed an obsession with Waitkus after seeing him play as first baseman with the Chicago Cubs. According to a 1949 Time magazine article, she had seen him play in 1946, although John Theodore's 2002 biography of Waitkus indicates she later told her doctor she first saw Waitkus on April 27, 1947.

While she never actually met him during that time, at home she created a "shrine" to Waitkus with hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings, often spreading them out and looking at them for hours, according to her mother. She would even set an empty place across from her at dinner for Waitkus. Since the ballplayer was from the Boston area, she developed a craving for baked beans, and, because Waitkus was of Lithuanian descent, she even studied Lithuanian for a time.

She told her doctors, after the incident, "I used to go to all the ball games to watch him. We used to wait for them to come out of the clubhouse after the game, and all the time I was watching I was building in my mind that idea of killing him." In 1948, Steinhagen's family sent her to a psychiatrist, but her obsession didn't diminish, even after Waitkus was traded to Philadelphia. After the shooting, police found extensive clippings in her suitcase and even pictures papering the ceiling of her bedroom at home.

On June 14, 1949, the Phillies came to Chicago for a game against the Cubs. After the game, which she attended, Steinhagen sent Waitkus a handwritten note through a bellboy, inviting him to visit her in her 12th floor room in the Edgewater Beach Hotel where they were both registered. Claiming to be "Ruth Anne Burns", Waitkus opened her note:

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