<Tr> <Th> OCLC </Th> <Td> 11868356 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Followed by </Th> <Td> The Assistant (1957) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Natural is a 1952 novel about baseball by Bernard Malamud, and is his debut novel . The story follows Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked when he is shot by a woman whose motivation remains mysterious . Whether she is acting alone or is part of a plot can be debated . Most of the story concerns itself with his attempts to return to baseball later in life, when he plays for the fictional New York Knights with his legendary bat "Wonderboy". </P> <P> Based upon the bizarre shooting incident and subsequent comeback of Philadelphia Phillies player Eddie Waitkus, the story of Roy Hobbs takes some poetic license and embellishes what was truly a strange, but memorable, account of a career lost too soon . Apart from the fact that both Waitkus and fictional Hobbs were shot by women, there are few if any other similarities . It has been alternately suggested that the shooting incident might have been inspired by Chicago Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges, who was shot by a showgirl with whom he was romantically linked, but there has been no evidence to support this claim . </P>

What happened to roy hobbs after he was shot