The real-life Harriet Bird has died
Ruth Ann Steinhagen, the obsessed fan who in 1949 shot Philadelphia Phillies player Eddie Waitkus, hearly killing him, died in Chicago in Dec. 2012. She was 83 and had lived in obscurity for years. That incident inspired Bernard Malamud to write "The Natural."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/obsessed-fan-who-shot-player-inspired-movie-dies