Babe Didrikson – An Athlete for the Ages

by Ted Taylor

You can’t win them all — but you can try. Babe Didrikson

Babe Didrikson Zaharias might have been the greatest woman athlete of all time. Certainly she excelled in more sports than any other member of her sex and, though she’s mostly forgotten today, she certainly made her mark on the 20th Century sports scene.

Shortly after completing my latest book on the Philadelphia Athletics a friend passed along one of those baseball compendiums and in it, of all things, was a paragraph that stated that “The Babe” pitched an inning for the Philadelphia Athletics in spring training 1934. Had I know that, of course, she’d have been included among the 1,205 bios in the bookl. But try as I might, I cannot find much about her inning’s work, but what I did learn was that Ms. Didrickson also pitched against the A’s and also for the Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians that spring. All, history suggests, were one inning stints to attract fans and the media to, otherwise mundane, exhibition games.

When pitching for the Cardinals, against the A’s, in spring training 1934 the media of the day tells how she allowed the A’s to get two men on base and then got Al Simmons to line in to a double-play. With one on and two out Jimmie Foxx came to the plate and drilled one of her fast balls deep in to center field where Paul Dean (Dizzy’s kid brother), of all people, flagged down the ball for the inning-ending out. After the game the Babe said, “I had good control and threw a fast one with a hop on it”, suggesting that she didn’t walk anyone and that the A’s got on base on hits, not walks. Cardinals pitched Burleigh Grimes was quoted in the press that day as saying “Babe would be one of the best prospects in baseball if she were a boy”.

Also in 1934, Didrikson joined the House of David baseball team on a nationwide tour, where she struck out Joe DiMaggio during one exhibition game. It was reported that she could throw a baseball from deep center field to home plate-once a throw of hers was measured at over 300 feet. At the time she was just 23 years old.

Mildred Ella Didrikson was the sixth of seven children born in the coastal city of Port Arthur in southeastern Texas (also the birthplace of rock icon Janis Joplin). Her mother, Hannah, and her father, Ole, were immigrants from Norway. The Didrikson family moved to Beaumont when she was four years of age. She always claimed to have acquired the nickname “Babe” (after Babe Ruth) upon hitting five home runs in a childhood baseball game, but family legend suggests she got the nickname because she was called “Baby” as a toddler.

Though best known for her athletic gifts, Didrikson had many other talents and was a competitor in even the most domestic of occupations: sewing. An excellent seamstress, she made many of the clothes she wore, including her golfing outfits. She won the sewing championship at the 1931 State Fair of Texas in Dallas. In 1929, Didrikson graduated from Beaumont High School but did not attend college. She was a singer and a harmonica player. She recorded several songs on the Mercury Records label. Her biggest seller was “I Felt a Little Teardrop” with “Detour” on the flip side.

Didrikson’s first job after high school was a secretary, for the Employers Casualty Insurance Company of Dallas, though she was actually employed so that she could play basketball as an amateur on the company’s “industrial team”, the Golden Cyclones, in competition governed by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Despite leading the team to an AAU Basketball Championship in 1931, Didrikson first achieved wider attention as a track and field athlete.

Representing her company in the 1932 AAU Championships, she competed in eight out of ten events, winning five outright, and tying for first in a sixth. In the process, she set five world records in the javelin throw, 80-meter hurdles, high jump and baseball throw in a single afternoon. Didrikson’s performances were enough to win the team championship, despite her being the only member of her team.

Losing her amateur status because she appeared in an automobile advertisement, Didrikson was no longer eligible to play with the Golden Cyclones. In order to earn money, the “Amazing Amazon” first travelled to Chicago, Illinois and appeared in a vaudeville act, where she performed athletic feats and played the harmonica. Later she travelled the country with a billiards exhibition team, formed a barnstorming professional basketball team (she was the only woman on the team, the other plays – and their opponents – were all men) called Babe Didrikson’s All-Americans.

At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Didrikson won two gold medals. She had qualified to compete in five events, but women were restricted to three events at the Olympics. A day after setting the world record in the javelin throw, she set a new world record in the 80-meter hurdles, beating Evelyn Hall of Chicago by a few milliseconds. She was held to a silver finish in the high jump in spite of tying with the declared winner because the judges did not approve of her head-first style. Post-Olympics, Didrikson took advantage of her new celebrity status, touring the country with basketball and baseball teams and playing the harmonica on the vaudeville circuit. That year, she was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for the first time.

Didrikson began playing golf in 1931 or 1932. In 1932, in her eleventh game of golf, she drove 260 yards from the first tee and played the second nine in 43. She herself stated that she entered her first golf tournament in the fall of 1934. Although she did not win, she captured the qualifying round with a 77. In April 1935, in the Texas State Women’s Championship, she carded a birdie on the par-5 thirty-first hole, to win the tournament two-up. In the summer of 1935 she was declared a professional because of an unauthorized endorsement. She accepted the decision and for several years traveled about the country giving golf exhibitions.

She went on to so thoroughly dominate the sport of golf that she would win the AP Female Athlete of the Year Award five more times, all for playing a sport in which she didn’t compete until she was in her 20s. Throughout her golfing career, Didrikson was unwilling to “pretty up” for the cameras as the press requested. When asked at the National Celebrities Tournament how a girl could hit a ball so far, Babe replied “just take off your girdle and swing.” Didrikson won 82 tournaments as a golfer, winning 21 straight in 1947-48 and 19 in a row in 1949, the same year she helped to found the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Despite her impressive play, Didrikson’s requests to enter the National Open-put on by the United States Golf Association (USGA), the ruling body of men’s golf in America-were repeatedly denied. Although the USGA’s rules did not at the time specifically forbid women from participating, the rules were soon re-written so that only men could enter USGA tournaments.

Denied amateur status, in January 1938, she competed in the Los Angeles Open, a men’s PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) tournament, a feat no other woman would even try until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, and Michelle Wie almost six decades later. She shot an 81 and an 84, and missed the cut. In that tournament, she was teamed with professional wrestler George Zaharias. They were married eleven months later, and lived in Tampa on the premises of a golf course that they purchased in 1951.

Babe went on to become America’s first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s. After gaining back her amateur status in 1942, she won the 1946-47 United States Women’s Amateur Golf Championships, as well as the 1947 British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship – the first American to do so – and three Western Open victories. Having formally turned professional in 1947, she dominated the Women’s Professional Golf Association and later the Ladies Professional Golf Association of which she was a founding member.

Zaharias even won a tournament named after her, the Babe Zaharias Open of Beaumont, Texas. She won the 1947 Titleholders Championship and the 1948 U.S. Women’s Open for her fourth and fifth major championships. She won 17 straight women’s amateur victories, a feat never equaled by anyone, including Tiger Woods. By 1950, she had won every golf title available. Totaling both her amateur and professional victories, Zaharias won a total of 82 golf tournaments.

Charles McGrath of The New York Times once wrote of Zaharias, “Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery”.

While Zaharias had missed the cut in her first PGA tour event during her first year of tournament golf, as she became more experienced, she made the cut in every PGA tour event she entered. In 1945, Zaharias played in three PGA tournaments. She shot 76-81 to make the two-day cut at the Los Angeles Open (missed the three-day cut after a 79), making her the first (and currently only) woman in history to make the cut in a regular PGA tour event. She continued her cut streak at the Phoenix Open, where she shot 77-72-75-80 finishing in 33rd place. At the Tucson Open she shot 307 and finished tied for 42nd. Unlike other female golfers competing in men’s events, she got into the Phoenix and Tucson opens through 36-hole qualifiers, as opposed to a sponsor’s exemption.

Zaharias had her greatest year in 1950 when she completed the Grand Slam of the three women’s majors of the day, the U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Western Open, in addition to leading the money list. That year, she became the fastest LPGA golfer to ever reach ten wins, doing so in one year and 20 days, a record still standing. In 1950, Didrikson was named female “Athlete of the Half Century” by the Associated Press.

She was the leading money-winner again in 1951, and in 1952 took another major with a Titleholders victory, but illness prevented her from playing a full schedule in 1952-53. However, this did not stop her from also becoming the fastest player to reach 20 wins (two years and four months).

Babe was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953, and even after undergoing cancer surgery, she made a comeback in 1954. She took the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average, her only win of that trophy, and her 10th and final major with a U.S. Women’s Open championship, one month after the cancer surgery. With this win, she became the second-oldest woman to ever win a major LPGA championship tournament (behind Fay Crocker). Babe Zaharias now stands third to Crocker and Sherri Steinhauer. These wins made her the fastest player to reach 30 wins (five years and 22 days). In addition to continuing tournament play, she also served as the president of the LPGA from 1952 to 1955.

Her colon cancer recurred in 1955, and that limited her schedule to eight golfing events that season, but she managed two wins, which stand as her final ones in competitive golf. The recurring cancer was fatal and she died September 27, 1956 in Galveston, Texas. At the time of her death, at age forty-five, she was still in the front ranks of female golfers. The Zahariases had no children and were rebuffed by authorities when they sought to adopt. Though Zaharias has been accused by many of having lesbian relations with fellow golfer Betty Dodd, no evidence has been produced to substantiate such a claim.

She and her husband had established the Babe Zaharias Fund to support cancer clinics. “The Babe” is buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont. There is a Babe Zaharias Park located in Beaumont TX adjacent to a museum devoted to her amazing career.