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John Dillinger sighted at a 1934 baseball game...
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John Dillinger sighted at a 1934 baseball game...

Item # 727159 ·
THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Mass., June 29, 1934

* Gangster John Dillinger
* On the run in Chicago ?
* Sighted at baseball game ?
* Less than a month of killing 

Near the bottom of the front page is a two column heading: "Says He Saw Dillinger at Baseball Game Tuesday" with subhead. (see images)  He would be assassinated less than a month later in Chicago.
Complete with all 30 pages, light toning and a little wear at the margins, generally good.

Background: On June 28, 1934, a sensational nationwide United Press International (UPI) wire report gripped a Depression-era public with the revelation that John Dillinger—the FBI’s elusive "Public Enemy No. 1"—was brazenly hiding in plain sight by blending into the crowds at Major League Baseball games, specifically at Chicago's Wrigley Field. The rare publication of this story was highly significant because it exposed a profound embarrassment for J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation; while federal agents were aggressively scouring the Midwest, Dillinger, a lifelong baseball fanatic who had undergone crude plastic surgery to alter his appearance, was casually eating hot dogs and watching the Chicago Cubs from the bleachers—at one point sitting just sections away from the captain of the Chicago Police "Dillinger Squad." The news wire underscored the sheer audacity of the outlaw, captivators who viewed him with a strange folk-hero fascination, and the desperate, flawed nature of the early federal manhunt. This media exposure ultimately forced the FBI to escalate their tactics, culminating in Dillinger being ambushed and killed outside Chicago's Biograph Theater less than a month later, ending one of the most romanticized criminal runs in American history.
Category: The 20th Century
Price
$48
100% Authentic: Original printing, never a reproduction.