Jules Pujol was an infielder and outfielder for several professional teams in and around his hometown of New Orleans during the 1880s. Statistics are unavailable for much of Pujol’s career, but his best season was with New Orleans in the Southern League in 1887 when he hit .314 in 82 games–he played sparingly, and hit no better than .242 after that.
Pujol was born in New Orleans on December 12, 1864. When he was not playing baseball he was a member of New Orleans’ all-volunteer fire department–the Fireman’s Charitable Association.
Pujol’s statistical decline after his .314 season might be attributed to an incident on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in March of 1888. Pujol was out celebrating after New Orleans’ annual “Fireman’s Day Parade,” when, according to The New Orleans Times-Picayune he was “Shot and dangerously injured by Police Officer Albert Torregano.”
Pujol was fighting with another man in the bar when the officer approached:
“The officer attempted to make pace and requested Pujol to stop, when the latter said: ‘You want some of it, too,’ and struck him in the face and knocked him down.
“As the officer got up he again asked Pujol to quit, when Pujol knocked him down again, and his brother Luis came up saying, ‘Let me get at him, ‘ and also struck (the officer), and while he was lying there they both kicked him and beat him about the legs and body.”
The officer finally drew his weapon and shot Pujol, “striking Jules under the left shoulder-blade.” Despite being shot, Pujol “continued chasing the officer.” Pujol finally “fell to the floor from the loss of blood,” and was taken to the hospital where the wound was “pronounced very dangerous.” The bullet had “passed through his right lung and striking the third rib lodged in his stomach.”
So dangerous was the wound that several newspapers printed a wire report which said:
“Jules Pujol, late third baseman of the New Orleans club, who was shot in the Crescent a week ago, is dead.”
Reports of Pujol’s demise were premature. Three weeks after the shooting he was released from the hospital. The Times-Picayune declared him “cured.”
In April, the assault case against the Pujol brothers was “continued indefinitely.” Neither were ever tried, Louis returned to the fire department, and Jules left for Texas. He played for the Galveston Giants and Houston Babies in the Texas Southern League in 1888 and finished his professional career the following season with mobile in the Southern League.
In 1891, he became a Lieutenant in the newly formed New Orleans Fire Department.
Pujol and four other firefighters, including his brother Louis, were awarded the department’s highest honor for saving nine lives in a fire at the Grunewald Opera Hall at Baronne and Canal Streets in 1892. According to the book History of the Fire Department in New Orleans (1895), the five went to the roof of a neighboring building, and then swung “A rope to the burning building, hauling a ladder over to bridge from one to the other, and passing the endangered persons across it to a place of safety.”
Jules Pujol, second from left
Pujol rose through the ranks of the department and was an assistant chief–serving under his brother, Chief Louis Pujol–on February 23, 1924, when he responded to a fire at a warehouse on Canal Street. Pujol died after being trapped in the building when the walls collapsed. Five other firefighters were seriously injured.
He is interred at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans.
A shorter version of this post was published on September 13, 2012
Baseball History Daily 