Suicide
In July, Ernie Lombardi suffered an injured finger. Willard Hershberger filled in for him well. He played in 48 games and hit .309. However, in a game against a poor New York Giants team at the Polo Grounds on July 31, the Reds blew a 4–1 late-game lead and lost the game 5–4. Three days later, the Reds lost both games of a double-header to the even poorer Boston Bees 10–3 and 4–3, respectively.
The sensitive Hershberger, who caught the Giants game and the second game versus the Bees, perceived that some of his teammates might have felt or implied that they might not have lost to such mediocre teams had Lombardi been playing. At one point during the Bees game, an upset Hershberger alluded to his father's suicide and said he would do likewise. Concerned, Reds manager Bill McKechnie spoke to his catcher in private. Hershberger tearfully opened up and took personal blame for the two losses. However, after about an hour, he had calmed down considerably and McKechnie believed he would be fine. The following morning, Reds publicist and traveling secretary Gabe Paul called Hershberger's room at the Copley Plaza Hotel and relayed a message from Bill McKechnie that he wasn't going to play that afternoon and needn't even put on his uniform; McKechnie likely wanted to give Hershberger time away from the ballpark to collect himself emotionally, but Hershberger said he would be there. But when he failed to appear for pre-game activities, Gabe Paul became concerned and went to the hotel. The manager unlocked the door to Hershberger's room and admitted him.
Paul saw Willard Hershberger lying dead in a blood-filled bathtub. He had slashed his throat.
After giving his team the tragic news, Bill McKechnie exhorted the Reds to dedicate themselves to winning the World Series "for Hershie". McKechnie never publicly revealed what Willard Hershberger said to him during their meeting. "It had nothing to do with anybody on the team", he told reporters. "He told it to me in confidence, and I will not utter it to anyone".
The Cincinnati Reds would go on to defeat the American League champion Detroit Tigers in seven games to win the World Series. Reds players decided to share a portion of their championship money, totaling $5,803, with Hershberger's grieving mother, Maude. Hershberger was interred at Visalia Public cemetery, in Visalia, California.
Read more about this topic: Willard Hershberger
Famous quotes containing the word suicide:
“Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth ... suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.”
—Julie Burchill (b. 1960)
“However great a man’s fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance—so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamour to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)