Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges had a day he would have loved to forget. He was known as a fiery, ill-tempered, good fielding, weak-hitting shortstop for the Cubs, but he was also one of the team leaders during the best decade of the Cubs bad century (they were in the World Series in ’32, ’35, and ’38).
But for all of his on-the-field hijinks, Billy Jurges will always be remembered for what happened off-the-field on July 6, 1932.
He was living at the Hotel Carlos at 3834 N. Sheffield Ave (now known as the Sheffield House Hotel), and so was a girl he had “seen” a few times–Violet Valli. She called Jurges on the telephone, and asked if she could see him. Before leaving her room, she wrote a suicide note saying that she was sorry for killing Billy Jurges and herself, but she had no choice because their “beautiful love had been broken up” by his teammates Kiki Cuyler and Lew Steadman. Jurges later said he had no idea what she meant by that.
Jurges let Violet into his room, but when he saw she had a gun, he grabbed at it and took a bullet in the hand and another through the ribs. Despite the injuries, he managed to get the gun away from her, and prevented her from killing herself. Then, after he recovered from the shooting, he refused to testify against her in court. The case was dismissed.
Valli used her notoriety as part of her act (she was a dancer), and signed a twenty-two week contract to sing in local nightclubs and theatres. She was billed as “Violet (What I did for love) Valli, the Most Talked About Girl In Chicago.”
Amazingly, Jurges wasn’t hurt too seriously. He returned to the Cubs before the end of the season, and hit .364 in the World Series against the Yankees.
