{"product_id":"242-i-shot-eddie-waitkus-7-x-10-5","title":"242. \"I Shot Eddie Waitkus!\"  7\" x 10.5\"","description":"\u003cp data-end=\"473\" data-start=\"217\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-end=\"226\" data-start=\"217\"\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 7 × 10.5 inches art print (not a comic book)\u003cbr data-end=\"274\" data-start=\"271\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-end=\"291\" data-start=\"274\"\u003eAvailability:\u003c\/strong\u003e Pre-order ends Sunday, May 24th  at 3 PM PT \/ 6 PM ET\u003cbr data-end=\"347\" data-start=\"344\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-end=\"360\" data-start=\"347\"\u003eShipping:\u003c\/strong\u003e Expected to ship approximately 40–60 days after the purchase window closes.\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEstimated timeframe. Not guaranteed.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"647\" data-end=\"728\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the Artist\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"350\" data-start=\"142\"\u003eIn the summer of 1949, baseball still felt untouchable. Ballplayers were heroes in flannel uniforms. America was settling into the glow of the postwar years. The game was supposed to be safe. Familiar. Clean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"428\" data-start=\"352\"\u003eThen Eddie Waitkus walked into Room 1297 at Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"709\" data-start=\"430\"\u003eA young woman named Ruth Ann Steinhagen had written him letters for years. She asked him to come upstairs because she “had something important to tell him.” Waitkus reportedly thought it might be a prank. Instead, Steinhagen pulled a rifle from a closet and shot him point blank.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"752\" data-start=\"711\"\u003eFor a moment, the entire country stopped.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1143\" data-start=\"754\"\u003eThe story became front page news across America. A real life collision of celebrity obsession, loneliness, romance, violence, and baseball mythology. It was shocking not only because it happened, but because it happened to a ballplayer. The national reaction carried a kind of innocence lost quality to it, as though something larger than Eddie Waitkus himself had been wounded that night.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1180\" data-start=\"1145\"\u003eAgainst all odds, Waitkus survived.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1361\" data-start=\"1182\"\u003eYears later, the incident would partially inspire Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, helping transform the story into something even stranger: part true crime, part American folklore.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1404\" data-start=\"1363\"\u003eSome baseball stories live in box scores.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-is-only-node=\"\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-end=\"1446\" data-start=\"1406\"\u003eOthers linger in hotel hallways forever.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pop Fly Pop Shop","offers":[{"title":"Regular","offer_id":49738050699504,"sku":"REG_WAITKUS","price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0539\/6450\/5260\/files\/I_Shot_Eddie_WaitkusWEBcopy_51801db5-7d5b-467b-84f5-76fb562515f9.jpg?v=1779063632","url":"https:\/\/popflypopshop.com\/products\/242-i-shot-eddie-waitkus-7-x-10-5","provider":"Pop Fly Pop Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}