The baseball biography of Eddie Gaedel tells only part of the story.
Position: Pinch hitter
Bats: Right • Throws Left.
Height: 3 feet 7, Weight: 65 pounds.
Born: June 8, 1925
Died: June 18, 1961
Gaedel’s moment in baseball history is celebrated. He became the shortest person to ever play in the Major Leagues when Bill Veeck and the St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ· Browns sent him to the plate at Sportsman’s Park on Aug. 19, 1951. He walked in his only at-bat and was promptly replaced by a pinch runner.
His career lasted all of 20 seconds.
But Gaedel’s death 10 years later was as mysterious as his career was brief.
On June 18, 1961, Gaedel, then 36, was beaten somewhere between a bowling alley and the home he shared with his mother in Chicago. He crept home, crawled into bed and was dead by the next morning.
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An inquest was ordered because a coroner's physician found bruises on Gaedel's face and knees.
Two weeks Dr. Harold Wagner, coroner's pathologist, testified an autopsy showed Gaedel died of a heart condition.
Gaedel was know to be cantankerous and a bit of a drinker too. Chicago police could not determine if he was mugged or was involved in a dispute that carried over from the bowling alley. There were no suspects charged, and his death remains a cold case to this day.
Gaedel’s funeral was held later that summer in Chicago.
Bob Cain, the pitcher who walked Gaedel, was the only Major Leaguer to attend. He flew into Chicago from his Cleveland home. Cain, a gentle man, was a journeyman pitcher for six seasons - his lone highlight was winning a double one-hitter for the Browns in 1952 against Cleveland's Bob Feller.
For years Post-Dispatch columnist Bob Broeg wondered: Why the humane trip, the thoughtfulness for one who, in effect, had sought to embarrass him?
"Because," the former pitcher told Broeg, "I've been a goodwill man and speaker for all these years and the midget was my best story. I owed him that one."