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PLUNGER JOE YEAGER KILLED Famous Figure of 1900s Struck by Halsted Street Car Made and Lost Numerous Fortunes. Joe Yeager, 75 years old, was struck and killed Sunday evening by a northbound Hal-stead Street car at Forty-Fifth Street and his death recorded in the regular papers as being I that of a former groom and trainer. Yeagers death spelled finis to a life that was almost as spectacular as that of the more widely known "Pittsburgh Phil." He had plenty of publicity in his. day and probably plunged as heavily as did the better-known George E. Smith, "Pittsburgh Phils" real name, but he lacked personal publicity agents of the type that flocked around the Pittsburgh man in his heyday on the track and many of his exploits were unheralded in the press. Track stewards and other high racing officials were cognizant of them, however. In 1900 Yeager married Irene Romaine, a well known actress, and in 1909, when she sued him for divorce, she charged that he made 00,000 per year playing the races and had a stable of horses valued at 0,000, plus other property running into hundreds of thousands of dollars. The plunger often ran afoul of racing officials and on numerous occasions was fined and warned that in the future he was to be more careful. In the same year that Mrs. Yeager sued for divorce, Yeager almost broke the layers at Pimlico, and they stated after the meeting that there had been no business to speak of outside of Yeagers. He recouped many of his 1908 losses at the Old Hilltop track. He was known in every racing center from coast to coast. The one-time famous Chicago plunger made and lost innumerable fortunes but was in very moderate circumstances when killed.
