The Show Girl and the Shortstop: The Strange Saga of Violet Popovich and Her Shooting of Cub Billy Jurges

This article was written by Jack Bales

This article was published in Fall 2016 Baseball Research Journal


This article was selected as the winner of the 2017 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.

Billy Jurges

So, turn the key with me and enter Room 509 of the [Hotel Carlos], the most famous place in Chicago that you barely knew existed. — (Kankakee, Illinois) Daily Journal and (Ottawa, Illinois) Daily Times, April 10, 2010 1

JACK BALES has been the Reference and Humanities Librarian at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, for more than 35 years. His Chicago Cubs articles include a biography of Bill Veeck Sr. in the Fall 2013 issue of The Baseball Research Journal.