After “Bad Bill” Eagan finished the 1898 season with the Syracuse Stars –he hit just .227, his lowest recorded minor league season average—then returned to his native Camden, NJ–Eagan started his amateur baseball career in Camden as a pitcher, his catcher was another Camden native, William “Kid” Gleason.
Bad Bill Eagan
The Harrisburg Telegraph—Eagan had spent two seasons playing in the Pennsylvania city—told the story:
“Bill Eagan the once great second baseman of the Harrisburg Club, in a fair example of what rum will do when it gets the upper hand of a man. Eagan would have been one of the leading players of the profession if he had left strong drink alone. He was a sure fielder, hard batter and quick baserunner and ought to be in his prime as a player by this time, but he has drained too many mugs and now winds up in a police court at his home in Camden, NJ, on a charge of attempted murder.
“Eagan was intoxicated yesterday and displaying a 48-caliber revolver, placed it to his temple and remarked: ‘I am going to kill my wife and blow my brains out.’ He paid Barber Riceman fifty cents which he owed him, and also paid a nearby saloon keeper $1 for drinks that he had bought. Then he returned to the barber shop, said good-bye to his friends, and exclaiming; “Now I am free from debt and am ready to do the job,’ he started for his home and put the threat into execution.
When he arrived home Eagan fired two shots at—and missed–his wife, and then attempted to shoot one of the responding police officers, but because of “a quick blow from (another police officer’s) club the murderous weapon was knocked from the crazed man’s hand.”
The Chicago Tribune said:
“William Eagan, or, as he is known in the baseball profession, ‘Bad Bill’ Eagan, is a player of national reputation. He is an ignorant man, and stories of his badness are told all over the league. He was considered one of the best ball players in the profession.”
The Tribune said about Eagan’s brief stay with Pittsburgh earlier in 1898:
“He failed to behave himself, and drunkenness was the charge which let him out as a Pirate.”
Eagan was held in the Camden jail from October of 1898 until March of 1899; it is unclear what he was formally charged with, and he was never tried.
In spite of his reputation, baseball wasn’t done with “Bad Bill” yet. Shortly after his release from jail, Syracuse sold Eagan’s contract to the Western League’s Detroit Tigers. His statistics for the season don’t survive, but Eagan seems to have gone back to his old habits. After he sat out both games of a double-header with the Kansas City Blues in July, The Kansas City Journal said:
“’Bad Bill’ Eagan acquired a jag yesterday and succeeded in making a holy show of himself. Such creatures and ‘Bad Bill’ should be out of the game.”
Eagan was also seriously injured the same month when, according to The Associated Press, during a game with the Columbus Buckeyes, while trying to stretch a double into a triple:
“Eagan threw himself, feet foremost toward the bag. His spike caught in the base sack and his right leg was given a terrible wrench. ‘Bad Bill’ screamed with pain and in an instant was surrounded by members of both teams… (He) had thrown out his kneecap. (A doctor) pushed the cap back and then the injured player was carried to the bench.”
Whether the injury contributed or not is unknown, but by August The Sporting Life reported that he had again worn out his welcome:
“Bad Bill” Eagan has worn a Detroit uniform for the last time. Eagan has not behaved at all and (George) Stallings has got through for good and all with him.”
George Stallings
One more team was willing to take a chance on Eagan; he was signed for 1900 by the Youngstown Little Giants in the Interstate League. After appearing in just 26 games The Sporting Life reported that:
“Eagan has been playing ball in Youngstown, OH, but he said he needed a rest. He came to Detroit for that purpose Saturday morning, and he paid $5 in the police court this morning for the first installment. “Bad Bill” said he was so glad to get back and he met so many friends that he rather lost track of the proceedings. He had fallen Into a Rip Van Winkle sleep when the policeman picked him up. “Bad Bill” paid his fine and went out for the “rest.” Bill doesn’t think much of Youngstown, he says. “
The Youngstown Vindicator said Eagan was released by the Little Giants before he left for Detroit
In either case, he had finally run out of chances, and never played another professional game.
The Indianapolis News said, in late August of 1900, that Eagan was:
“(P)icked up on the streets of Detroit) insane. He was removed to the emergency hospital, where he became violent and it took a number of men to overpower him and take him to the station and confine him in a padded cell. Drink caused Eagan’s downfall. Sober he was a hard working ambitious ball player; if a drink or two were given to him he became a dangerous maniac.”
He was released after several days, and the the many premature rumors of his death began at that point, while Eagan continued to tend bar in Detroit. In April of 1904 w he became ill and was sent to a tuberculosis sanitarium in Denver. Ten months later “Bad Bill” was dead at age 35.
Despite having played just six games with Chicago in 1893 Eagan made such an William A. Phelon that more than 20 years later he wrote in “Baseball Magazine:”
“Although the poor fellow had few chances given him in the big league, I always thought there never yet was a second baseman who mixed and mingled in the furtherance of infield plays like Bad Bill Eagan. Possibly I can best symbolize Eagan’s style of second-basing, for the present generation, by stating that he played second just about as (Fred) Tenney played first. (Eddie) Collins doesn’t go so far from second as Eagan did, nor does he carry out nearly so many plays—but it’s quite likely he could if he had to—if he didn’t have, through the past few years, the marvelous (Jack) Barry cutting in and taking his half of the proceedings.
Eagan, though, was almost uncanny at times. I saw him working with (Cap) Anson on first and (Bill) Dahlen at short. It might be taken for granted that Eagan would have to move round considerably on the side toward first, with the ponderous and fast-aging Anson on station one, but Dahlen was then in the flush of his youth and a moving streak at short—when he wanted to be. Yet I saw Eagan bewildering Dahlen as well as Anson by the phantom-like rapidity of his movements, and the way in which he suddenly appeared at the spot where the play should be kept going, arriving on the ground before Dahlen could even draw back his arm to throw.”
Baseball History Daily 
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