Eddie Waitkus returned to the baseball diamond that same year, on August 19, 1949, and finished the season with a .306 batting average. He was the leadoff hitter for the Phillies' "Whiz Kids" that won the 1950 National league Pennant. He led the team with 102 runs scored.
Author Bernard Malamud was not a big baseball fan, but he used basic elements of Waitkus' story and other baseball legends (notably Chicago White Sox's Shoeless Joe Jackson for his 1952 book "The Natural." In 1984, it was made into a movie starring Robert Redford and Glenn Close.
--Cooter
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