SEPT 2011: THE  102nd  ARTICLE FOR BASEBALL GURU

ONEMOREINNING

     LoVESICK MaIDENS:PaRT      TwO

   Her name was VIOLET VIOLA POPOVICH and at the age of 23 she

had been through several boy friends and all of them had been the real thing ......Billy Jurges was no exception. In fact this time around she was so sure of what had been their relationship  (even though he had broken up with her) she was going to do something to make it permanent. SHE FELT HE WAS SOMETHING SPECIAL ...........AND SO DID THE BASEBALL WORLD.

   Billy Jurges had always been pretty special. He excelled in school......had several scholarships offered to him but chose to enter the minor leagues instead and did extremely well at every level. His teammates respected his baseball acumen as well as his exceptional skills on the field. He seemed to be a natural born leader and quickly rose to the Major League level.

   In his first year with the Chicago Cubs it looked ike they had picked a winner. His fielding in the infield was superb and by the third month he was hitting over .300.

   But then Violet Viola Popovich entered the scene.

   Before Jurgess came to the Cubs he had severed his realationship with her.  This didn't suit her at all. Usually she was the one to end ties with her boyfriends and for months she brooded over what had happened. It was now time to do something about getting Jurges back.

   

 

 

 

Finding out what hotel he was staying at, out she traveled down to it, got his hotel room number, went up to the room, and upon hearing who it was Jurges let her in. She then tried to convince him to begin their former relationship once again but to no avail.

   He finally tried to get her to leave, she resisted, they struggled against each other, and she then pulled out a gun from her bag. Jurges tried to it away from her and in the course of attempting to do that the gun went off. It hit him in his wrist and in his ribs.     He crumpled to his knees and before Viola could leave the room people from the floor came to his aid.

  He was rushed to the hospital, operated on, and recovered several weeks later. Poppovich was held in custody until he left the hospital. Since Jurges refused to press charges aginst her she wa let out and then the fun started. Instead of being held accountable for her actions, the media made her into a public hero. They talked in terms of her being a woman spurned, someone who had given her all for love and she was made into a icon of sorts.

    Offers poured in for her to tell her story (which she did for several newspapers and magazines). On top of all that she was booked for a twenty week tour around the states where her billing read, "Violet Viola what I did for love  Popovich, the most talked about girl in the country". The act consisted of her singing several love songs and ended with a very elongated and explicit account of what her relationship had been with Jurges and what had happened in that hotel room. 

 

 

 

After a year or so she was old news and quickly faded out of sight.

Jurges went on to have a fine career . He never gave out any interviews that dealt with the shooting or his involvement with Ms. Popovich.