“Hack”

A fictionalized docu-drama

In 1930, the Chicago Cubs’ centerfielder, Hack Wilson had what has been described as the greatest season ever for a National League baseball player.

He led the League with a 356 average, hit 56 home runs, and produced 191 R.B.I.s. He scored 146 runs and drew 105 walks.

In his career with the Cubs, he made over 400 putouts, and he had a throwing arm that rocketed the ball directly from the outfield to Homeplate without a single bounce.

He was often called a right-handed Babe Ruth. Like the Babe, Hack led the league in both homeruns and in strikeouts.

For one season, Hack Wilson was actually paid more than Babe Ruth.

By his appearance, Hack Wilson should never have been a professional baseball player, much less the one player who was paid more than Babe Ruth. He was slightly less than five feet five inches tall and had short (really short) legs and tiny feet. In contrast to his short legs and tiny feet, he had a massive head, probably one and a half times the size of most men. His hats had to be custom made for him.

Some called him a freak.

His fellow players, however, called him “Hack” because his massive arms and chest were the same size as the arms and chest of the world’s strongest man, the very popular professional wrestler, Georg Karl Julius Hackenschmidt, who wrestled under the nickname, the Russian Lion.

The Russian Lion and “Hack” the baseball player had very similar physiques, if you only looked at them from the waist up.

Hack Wilson was a man with a hot temper, climbing into the stands to fight offending fans, and charging into the clubhouses of opposing teams.

He was also a man with an enormous appetite for alcohol. One teammate told the press that he had never seen Hack Wilson completely sober. He would take a taxi immediately after a game to a favorite speakeasy and spend the entire night at the club, and then, in the morning, take another taxi back to the stadium, ready to play a game on no sleep.

In 1930, Hack Wilson was paid more than Babe Ruth. In 1934, he was sacked two months into the season by the Philadelphia Phillies. His contract was picked up mid-season by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he was released in August of that year, ending his career.

After baseball, he purchased a pool hall but lacked the business acumen to make it profitable. Needing additional funding to keep the business operating, he brought in a pair of partners. However, within a year, he sold his share of the business to them. Hack Wilson fell into a dissolute lifestyle, working irregularly as a bar tender and as a truck driver. When World War Two began, he took a job in a defense factory in Baltimore but had to quit after a year because of his poor health.