{"id":87070,"date":"2025-02-14T05:08:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T05:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-february-4-2025-inspiring-sports-stories-babe-didrikson-zaharias\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T05:08:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T05:08:31","slug":"americanstudies-february-4-2025-inspiring-sports-stories-babe-didrikson-zaharias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=87070","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: February 4, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Babe Didrikson Zaharias"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[For this
\nyear\u2019s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports stories
\nand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine\u2019s tribute
\nto my two favorite American athletes!]<\/p>\n

On two ways to connect
\nand parallel the pioneering athlete to legendary men, and one key way not to.<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Multi-Sport Achievements and Fame: I\u2019ve always
\nthought of Jim Thorpe<\/a> as the
\n20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most talented athlete, what with his stunning and
\ngroundbreaking successes in Olympic track and field, football, and baseball,
\namong other sports. But in researching this post, I realized that Didrikson Zaharias<\/a> has a serious
\ncase<\/a> for the same title: I had long known about her unparalleled successes
\nas a professional golfer<\/a>, but she also won two track and field gold medals (and
\none silver medal) at the
\n1932 Summer Olympics<\/a> and was an All-American
\nin basketball<\/a>, again among many other athletic accomplishments. Although
\nsports lend themselves particularly well to lists and rankings and debates
\nabout who was the best, the truth is that both Thorpe and Didrikson Zaharias
\nshould be remembered as truly exceptional and influential athletes, figures
\nwhose early to mid 20th<\/sup> century, runaway crossover successes in both
\namateur and professional sports helped pave the way for the sports world to
\nbecome the national and global phenomenon that it remains to this day. <\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Larger-than-life Persona: Born Mildred Ella
\nDidrikson, Didrikson
\nZaharias would later claim<\/a> that she gained the nickname \u201cBabe\u201d when she hit
\nfive home runs in a youth baseball game. That might or might not be true (her
\nNorwegian immigrant mother supposedly called her \u201cBebe\u201d throughout her life),
\nbut even the uncertainty helps illustrate Didrikson Zaharias\u2019 embrace of a
\nlarger-than-life persona that echoes that of her potential namesake Babe Ruth. For
\nexample, she long claimed to have been born in 1914 (rather than her actual
\n1911 birth year), perhaps to exaggerate her youthful accomplishments yet
\nfurther. And she complemented the athletic successes I detailed above with a
\nlifelong series of forays into the worlds of celebrity and popular culture: singing
\nand playing harmonica on several
\npop songs for Mercury Records<\/a>; performing on the vaudeville circuit; trying
\nher hand as a pocket
\nbilliards player<\/a>, as in a famous multi-day match against billiards champion
\nRuth
\nMcGinnis<\/a>; and marrying
\nprofessional wrestler George Zaharias<\/a>, the \u201cCrying
\nGreek from Cripple Creek<\/a>.\u201d Like Babe Ruth, Didrikson Zaharias\u2019 athletic
\naccomplishments would have been more than enough to cement her fame and legacy;
\nbut like Ruth, she clearly wanted all that culture and life had to offer.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Shattering Stereotypes: Jim Thorpe and Babe Ruth
\nare two of the greatest American athletes of all time, and linking any other
\nathlete to them is (I hope and would argue) a sign of respect. Yet at the same
\ntime, I did so at least somewhat ironically, to help engage with the
\nparticular, unquestionably
\ngendered limits<\/a> which Didrikson Zaharias continually encountered and yet
\nchallenged and destroyed. (Certainly a Native American athlete like Thorpe
\nfaced his own barriers and challenges, of course.) The most overt such limits,
\nmany of which called into question Didrikson Zaharias\u2019 gender itself, are
\nnicely encapsulated by this quote, from sportswriter
\nJoe Williams in the New York World-Telegram<\/i><\/a>: \u201cIt would be much
\nbetter if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited
\nfor the phone to ring.\u201d In the last few years of her life, Didrikson Zaharias
\ndeveloped a close, quite possibly romantic
\nrelationship with fellow golfer Betty Dodd<\/a>, a relationship neither would
\ndescribe as romantic due to the limits of their early 1950s society. Yet at the
\nsame time, in those final years Didrikson Zaharias shattered all limits one
\nfinal time: diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953, she continued to golf
\nprofessionally until her 1956 death, winning
\nmultiple tournaments<\/a> including the last two she entered. A towering and
\ninspiring sports legend to the last.<\/p>\n

Next
\ninspiring story tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you\u2019d highlight?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[For this year\u2019s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports stories and figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine\u2019s tribute to my two favorite American athletes!] On two ways to connect and parallel the pioneering athlete to legendary men, and one key way not to. 1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Multi-Sport Achievements and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,13373,42740,3843,16337,329,4717,42741],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-87070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-babe","tag-didrikson","tag-february","tag-inspiring","tag-sports","tag-stories","tag-zaharias"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: February 4, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Babe Didrikson Zaharias - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=87070\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: February 4, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Babe Didrikson Zaharias - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[For this year\u2019s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports stories and figures, past and present. 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