50 Fun Facts About Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Besides sport, in what domestic skill did Babe compete, making many of her own golfing outfits?

She said she won the sewing championship at the 1931 State Fair of Texas; in fact she won at a smaller fair, embellishing the story years later.

Babe recorded several songs for Mercury Records. Which instrument did she play?

Her biggest seller was 'I Felt a Little Teardrop', backed with 'Detour'.

In which Texas coastal city was Mildred Ella Didrikson born in 1911?

She was the sixth of seven children; the family moved to Beaumont when she was four.

From which country had Babe's parents Hannah and Ole emigrated?

Her three eldest siblings were born there; she later changed the spelling of the family name from Didriksen to Didrikson.

She claimed her nickname honored which slugger, after she hit five home runs in a childhood game?

Her Norwegian mother had in fact called her 'Bebe' since she was a toddler.

What was the profession of George Zaharias, whom Babe married in December 1938?

They had been paired together at a men's PGA event eleven months earlier and were married in St. Louis.

Babe's family moved when she was four to which Texas city, where she is buried?

She repeated the eighth grade there and eventually dropped out without graduating after moving to Dallas to play basketball.

Babe Didrikson took her first job as a secretary at what kind of Dallas business just to play on its basketball team?

Employers' Casualty Insurance Company employed her only so she could play as an amateur on its industrial team.

What was the name of the Dallas company basketball team Babe led to the 1931 AAU championship?

She was a three-time AAU All-American in basketball from 1930 to 1932.

Babe won the 1932 AAU team title single-handedly. In how many of the ten events did she compete?

She won five outright and tied for first in a sixth, enough to beat every full team entered.

Babe's first 1932 Olympic gold came in which event, with a world-record 11.7 seconds?

She had already equaled the world record of 11.8 seconds in her opening heat.

Babe's second 1932 Olympic gold came in which throwing event, with an Olympic-record 43.69 meters?

She set four world records at the Games in total.

Officials ruled Babe's high-jump technique improper in a jump-off. Which American teammate took the gold?

Both cleared a world-record-tying 1.657 metres before the bar went up to 1.67 for the jump-off.

Which event did Babe NOT compete in at the 1932 Olympics because Lillian Copeland beat her at the trials?

Copeland went on to win the Olympic gold medal in the event.

Babe is the only track and field athlete to win individual Olympic medals in which three types of event?

Two golds and a silver at Los Angeles in 1932 make up the unique set.

Why did Babe Didrikson throw water on teammates Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes on a train before the 1932 Games?

Pickett and Stokes were replaced by white athletes who had qualified with slower times.

After the Olympics Babe toured with a famous bearded barnstorming baseball team. What was it called?

She also fronted her own Babe Didrikson's All-Americans basketball team and performed on the vaudeville circuit.

In January 1933 Babe badly lost a multi-day New York match against Ruth McGinnis in which game?

She was a competitive pocket billiards player, though never a champion.

Which men's PGA tournament did Babe enter in January 1938, missing the cut?

No woman played against men in that event again until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lincicome almost sixty years later.

To regain her amateur status in golf, Babe had to compete in no other sport for how long?

She got amateur status back in 1942 and then dominated the amateur game.

What distinction did Babe earn by entering three men's professional events in 1945?

She finished 33rd at Phoenix and tied 42nd at Tucson, and got into the fields through 36-hole qualifiers rather than sponsor's exemptions.

In 1947 Babe became the first American to win which championship?

She had won the U.S. Women's Amateur the year before, then formally turned professional in 1947.

Babe's run of consecutive women's amateur tournament victories, never equaled, reached what number?

By 1950 she had won every golf title available to her.

Counting amateur and professional events, how many golf tournaments did Babe win in total?

Forty-one of those were LPGA Tour wins, including 10 majors.

Charles McGrath wrote no golfer was more beloved by the gallery, 'except perhaps for' whom?

She was America's first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s.

In 1948 Babe applied to qualify for the U.S. Open. What happened?

A 2020 opera, Par for the Course, dramatizes her reaction to that rejection.

Pitching for the Athletics against Brooklyn in March 1934, Babe Didrikson escaped the inning with what rare feat?

She gave up one walk and no hits in her one inning of spring-training work.

Which Hall of Fame pitchers reportedly taught Babe Didrikson to throw a curve before she pitched for the 1934 Cardinals?

Boston scored three runs off her before Bucky Walters flew out to Joe Medwick to end the inning.

Babe is still recognized as the world record holder among women for what baseball feat?

She spent time with a barnstorming team and pitched two scoreless innings for the Cleveland Indians in a 1934 exhibition.

In which year did Babe complete the Grand Slam of the three women's majors then played?

The sweep made her the leading money-winner that year, and again in 1951.

Babe reached 10 LPGA wins faster than any other golfer. How long did it take her?

Her records for reaching 20 wins (two years, four months) and 30 wins (five years, 22 days) also still stand.

Which fellow golfer became Babe Zaharias's close companion for the last six years of her life?

Biographer Susan Cayleff wrote that the two toured the circuit together as Babe's marriage grew troubled.

With what disease was Babe diagnosed in 1953?

She became a public advocate for cancer awareness at a time when many Americans refused to seek diagnosis.

Which major did Babe win in 1954, one month after cancer surgery and while wearing a colostomy bag?

It was her tenth and final major, and it made her the second-oldest woman then to win an LPGA major, behind Fay Crocker.

Which trophy for lowest scoring average did Babe win for the only time in 1954?

That season also made her the fastest player to reach 30 LPGA wins.

What office did Babe hold in the LPGA from August 1952 to July 1955?

She had been a founding member of the association in 1950.

What was the title of Babe's 1955 autobiography?

It is out of print but still held by many libraries.

How old was Babe when she died on September 27, 1956?

She died at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston and was still a top-ranked golfer at the time.

Which occupant of the White House honored Babe's cancer-awareness work when she visited?

She and George had set up the Babe Zaharias Fund to support cancer clinics.

Babe was the highest woman on ESPN's top 50 North American athletes of the 1900s. Where did she rank?

Golf Digest in 2000 ranked her the 17th-greatest golfer of any sex.

In 1999 the Associated Press named Babe the Woman Athlete of which period?

The AP had already voted her Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the Century in 1950 and Female Athlete of the Year six times.

Which heptathlete did Sports Illustrated rank ahead of Babe in its 2000 list of greatest female athletes?

Golf Digest that year ranked her the second-greatest woman golfer, after Mickey Wright.

Which USGA sportsmanship honor did Babe receive posthumously in 1957?

It is the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association.

What denomination was the U.S. postage stamp issued in Babe's honor in 1981?

In 2019 Time chose her as its retroactive Woman of the Year for 1932.

Which Texan golfing great said he knew of only eight men who could outdrive Babe?

Her grooved athletic swing was compared to Trevino's, a contrast with the elegant style of Joyce Wethered.

Which honor was Babe awarded posthumously on January 7, 2021?

She had been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1976 and the Legacy Walk in 2014.

Which Florida city reopened a course Babe owned as the Babe Zaharias Golf Course in 1974?

The course was added to the Florida Historic Golf Trail and gained a historical marker in 2023.

Babe appeared as herself in which 1952 Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn film?

The year before she had also appeared in ads for the 1933 Dodge sedan and later on the reality show The Comeback Story.

Which actress won an Emmy for the 1975 TV movie Babe and married co-star Alex Karras?

Karras played George Zaharias; the two met on the production.

Who played Babe in a 2014 'Sport Heroes' episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History?

Her story was also told in Don Van Natta Jr.'s 2011 biography Wonder Girl.