Babe Zaharias

Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias was one of the first really kick ass female athletes. A tough and feisty Texas gal from Beaumont, while in high school she played basketball and tennis and competed in track and field events. Eventually she could honestly say she had participated in virtually every sport you can name: baseball, softball, football, tennis, swimming, boxing, and wrestling. Babe even shot pool and played the harmonica. Later she was asked if there was anything she didn't play. "Yeah," was her famous reply. "'Dolls'".

After high school, Babe went to work for a local Beaumont business. Like many companies then and now, her office sponsored employee sports teams, including the semi-professional basketball team the Golden Cyclones. Naturally Babe joined in and also had competed in AAU events. Soon her ability took her all the way to the National Championships. At that time AAU championships were the same as the Olympic trials, and so Babe ened up a member of the 1932 Olympic Team when the games were held in Los Angeles. In LA Babe won two gold medals (80 meter hurdles and javelin) and tied for a third in the high jump. But Babe went over the bar head first, rather than backwards. That was non-standard technique, and so her tie for the gold was knocked down to the silver. Her win at the javelin was notable since it showed what other competitors quickly found out. Although of medium height (5' 5"), she had far higher than average upper body strength for her gender. She was, as one professional (male) athlete remarked, "strong as an ox" - and that was not intended as a pejorative comment.

It isn't true that Babe just picked up a golf club in her early-twenties and began winning tournaments. She had been taught the game in high school where she was good enough, but not necessarily better than other players. Then in 1932 she started taking lessons from a teaching pro and with her natural athletic skill and continual practice (she would hit up to 1500 balls a day) soon turned into a top amateur contender. In 1933, she won the Texas, Women's Amateur Championship.

When Babe actually turned pro is a bit vague, or perhaps rather a matter of definition and rulings. Like all golfers she started off as an amateur, and in a day when professional sports stars were rarely over paid, some players preferred amateur status (Bobby Jones, winner of the Grand Slam of golf in 1930, never turned pro). However, the rules were strict. Your sport could not bring you any money from anywhere, and you couldn't even play with a professional. Coming from a poor family, Babe needed the money and had seemingly never ending problems with loosing, regaining, and maintaining her AAU membership for (among other things) playing on semi-pro teams or having her name and image on advertisements. Then when she turned to golf, she had gone on exhibition tours with Gene Sarazen. Babe's personality could also be a bit grating ("What did you all show up for?" she'd call out in a locker room. "To find out who's going to come in second?"), so after her Texas Amateur win, some of the more prissy ladies (and poorer golfers) got Babe booted off the amateur list. Suddenly Babe found herself one of the most skilled golfers in the country, but with no tournaments to compete in.

The solution, though, was obvious. At that time women entering the normally male PGA events was not - as the rabbi said in Fiddler on the Roof - expressly forbidden. However, when Babe announced she would enter the US Open, the committee met and changed it to an all-male event.

But not all men in the PGA suffered from the particular Freudian anxiety which apparently had afflicted the organizers of the US Open. So in 1938, Babe simply filled out an application for the Los Angeles Open and teed up with the men. Unfortunately, she missed the cut as did her partner, professional wrestler George Zaharias. But during the round they started casting what she herself called flirtatious glances at each other, and at the end of the year, they got married. Although Babe again lost in the first round of the LA Open in 1944, she did make the three day cut in 1945, but failed to qualify for the final day's play. She certainly held her own, though, coming far ahead of quite a number of the guys. One sports writer, far from resenting the presence a lady on the course, commented that if Babe had played her usual game (she had been a bit inconsistent), she would have been near the top. It would have been great, he said, to see her contending with Byron Nelson and Sam Snead over the last 18 holes. Whatever the outcome, he wrote, Babe Zaharias certainly deserved a salute.

Although her amateur status was restored in 1943, Babe finally went pro all the way in 1947. There were Women's PGA tournaments, but they were few and far between. Then Babe's husband, George, suggested Babe and her friends organize an actual tournament tour just for the ladies. What a great idea, and soon Babe and a five other women (including another kick-butt competitor, Patty Berg) formed the Ladies Professional Golf Association. The LPGA was formally incorporated in 1950, and the number of members had risen to - eleven. In the end, though, the idea obviously caught on.

Everyone has faults, of course, and Babe was no different. Loosing graciously was not easy, and her temper on at least one occasion might have gotten her into very hot water. She and the Golden Cyclones were once playing Oklahoma Presbyterian College. Babe sunk a last minute goal, but the official ruled Babe's that counted one point not two. So Babe's team lost. The ruling was correct for women's basketball at that time, but Babe hauled off and slugged the ref. It wasn't a full forced Zaharias punch though, and he just laughed it off. Babe immediately regretted the incident and wrote the man several letters apologizing.

In her early years, Babe sometimes had to hold her own with spectator's jibes, particularly in exhibition games. She and her All-American basketball team were once playing the House of David men's team. All the House of David players sported beards and a (lady) spectator taunted Babe by shouting, "Where's your beard?" Babe's salty reply was ..... Well, this is a family website, and so perhaps we'll pass Babe's reply to

Babe could also let her competitiveness get the better of her sportswomanship (if such a word exists) and if she was losing might try to bend the rules to her benefit. In one tournament she was partnered with Patty (normally a good friend of Babe's), and Babe was loosing. Some clouds rolled, up, it sprinkled a little, and Babe stormed to the clubhouse and demanded the daily round be canceled because of the weather. Although the course was still easily playable, the officials were afraid of the Wrath of Babe (she had become one of the biggest tournament drawing cards) and agreed. Patty was so ticked off that she vowed she would, by God, win the next day's round (and the tournament). She did.

Babe's biographies tend to want to "explain" the Phenomenon That Was Babe Zaharias. But there's really not much to explain. As a female athlete she had competitiveness and a chutzpah and drive that were ahead of her time. She absolutely hated to loose. But while she lived, she also had to deal with the norms and prejudices of her time. As she got older she began to play down her tomboysihness, and there's one picture (and it is a great photo) of her and fellow lady golfer Dot Kielty giving amateur golfer, weight lifter, and all-around hunk Frank Stranahan a couple of big smackers on the cheek.

Babe's marriage to George lasted until she died, but her biographies mention she also had an intimate friendship with another woman. Obviously this biography isn't any different, and it's not exactly clear how far or intimate that relationship went. In any case it's really no one's business but Babe's.

In 1953, Babe was diagnosed with cancer. She still continued to play, and in 1954 won the Women's Open in Peabody Massachusetts - by 12 strokes. She died two years later, age 45.

References

Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias Susan E. Cayleff, University of Illinois Press, (1996) Probably the best and most factual biography of Babe. However, most of what's on the internet appears to be factual and straightforward, too.

Yes, Port Arthur can claim Babe, too, since that's where she was born. But her family moved to Beaumont when she was three. And in this book, you can find what Babe replied to the lady who made the remark about the beard.

And then Arnie Told Chi-Chi, Don Wade, McGraw-Hill, (1994). This is one of the popular And Then ---- Told ---- books of golf anecdotes. A very entertaining series, and this volume has the story of the rules of the US Open being changed because Babe said she was going to enter. There's also the story of how she tried to pull the fast one on Patty Berg only to have her plan backfire.

"Can't Beat the Babe", Los Angeles Times, Geoff Shackelford, December 11, 2002, D-1. A very good story about Babe's PGA tournaments.

"Answered Prayers", Lincoln Werden, New York Times, July 3, 1954. This covers Babe's last win of the Ladies Open.

"Babe Zaharias Dies; Athlete Had Cancer", New York Times, September 28, 1956.