Kaneland Connection: Eddie Gaedel Society targets Elburn establishment

ELBURN – Wayne Byerhof said he was a teenager playing in a baseball game in 1951 when he experienced a brush with history.

Byerhof, a former Elburn police chief, was 19 years old in that 1951 game, playing center field for an American Legion team in Elburn, against a team from Maple Park.

Byerhof, the youngest player on the team, recalls being taken out for a famous pinch hitter – Eddie Gaedel.

Gaedel is best known for making one plate appearance in Major League Baseball for the St. Louis Browns in 1951. Gaedel, who stood 3 feet, 7 inches tall, drew a walk. Byerhof, now 82, said Gaedel wasn’t about to swing when he appeared in the game in Elburn.

“He walked,” Byerhof said. “Then they put me in to run for him.”

That detail holds importance today for a man in Spokane, Washington – Tom Keefe. He is such a big fan of Gaedel that he created the Eddie Gaedel Society. The first chapter is in Spokane. The second chapter is in Elburn.

Keefe was impressed that Dick and Annette Theobald chose to call their Elburn establishment Eddie Gaedel Pub and Grill. Now 66 years old, Keefe said he was 14 when he read a book about Bill Veeck, who was the owner of the Browns when Gaedel made his appearance.

“It’s the only pub named after Eddie Gaedel,” Keefe said.

The pub got its name because of its small space. It is at 117 N. Main St. in Elburn.

“ ‘Little’ did we know that naming a bar after a small athlete would go as far as this has gone,” Annette Theobald wrote in an email. “I am always surprised when a customer tells me he stopped in because of the name.”

Keefe has planned to visit Elburn to mark Gaedel’s 90th birthday. Keefe, the founder and president of the Eddie Gaedel Society, said he will present a plaque and officially designate the second chapter of the society. He plans to make the trip on June 8, 2015.

Also, Keefe is hoping to find a photo from the game in Elburn. Byerhof said the game took place around Elburn Days, an Elburn Lions Club festival that typically is held in late August. Keefe said the Gaedel appearance, so soon after his famed big-league experience, which also was in August 1951, makes it especially significant.

“Elburn plays a really important role in the whole Eddie Gaedel saga,” Keefe said.

He said because of Gaedel’s notoriety, “I’m convinced that somewhere in family albums and old shoe boxes, that there has got to be Eddie Gaedel pictures in Elburn.”

• Al Lagattolla is the news editor of the Kane County Chronicle. Write to him at alagattolla@shawmedia.com.

On the Web

Those interested in the Eddie Gaedel Society can visit the website www.takeawalkeddie.com. Anyone with additional information about Gaedel's appearance in Elburn can contact the society's founder, Tom Keefe, via email at manager@takeawalkeddie.com.