September 27, 1956: Babe Didrikson Zaharias Dies

September 27, 1956: Babe Didrikson Zaharias dies at age 44. Perhaps the greatest female all-around athlete ever, she was also one of the earliest American celebrities to go public with a fight against cancer.

Mildred Ella Didrikson was born on June 26, 1911 in Port Arthur, Texas, later to be the hometown of singer Janis Joplin and football coach Jimmy Johnson. A daughter of Norwegian immigrants, she grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and her mother called her "Babe" all along. So the story she told, that she was nicknamed for Babe Ruth after hitting 5 home runs in a childhood baseball game, was a lie.

She was an accomplished seamstress, eventually making her own golf outfits, and good enough of a singer to get a recording contract and have some regional hits. She moved to Dallas, and played basketball for a team in an "industrial league," where companies sponsored teams made up of their employees, often hiring a "ringer" who was good at a particular sport to be on their payroll with a minimal job, enough to qualify for the league's rules. Babe's Golden Cyclones won the 1931 Amateur Athletic Union women's basketball title.

But it would be in track & field that she would gain worldwide fame. At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, she won the Gold Medal in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin throw, and the Silver Medal in the high jump. She remains the only track & field athlete of any gender to win medals in running, throwing and jumping events. Had the current event of the heptathlon, treated as a women's version of the decathlon, been in place at the time, she most likely would have won it.

She formed her own touring baseball and basketball teams, and in 1933 she took on the leading female pool player in America at the time, Ruth McGinnis, in New York, but lost.

In 1934, Didrikson pitched in 3 Major League Baseball Spring Training exhibition games: 1 inning, no runs, no hits, 1 walk for the Philadelphia Phillies against the Brooklyn Dodgers on March 20; 1 inning, 3 runs for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Boston Red Soxon March 22; and 2 scoreless innings for the Cleveland Indians against the Class AA New Orleans Pelicans on March 25. That's 3 runs in 4 innings, for an ERA of 6.75, but only 1 of the innings was bad. She also pitched or the barnstorming House of David baseball team, which did not make her wear a fake beard to match their real ones; and is still recognized as the world record holder for the farthest baseball throw by a woman.

In 1935, she began to play golf. In 1938, she competed in the Los Angeles Open, previously open only to men. She competed in men's events through 1945, largely due to the manpower drain of World War II. After that, there would not be another woman in a PGA-sanctioned men's event until Annika Sörenstam in 2003.

At that 1938 Los Angeles Open, which required golfers to pair up, she was paired with George Zaharias, a professional wrestler of Greek descent from Colorado. They were married right before Christmas that year. He quit wrestling, and became her manager. Together, they bought a golf course in Florida, which he managed, and they both played.

She took his surname, telling people that it was pronounced "Za-hairy-ass." Although they never divorced, it wasn't always a happy mairrage: She once remarked, "When I married him, he looked like a Greek god. Now, he looks like a goddamned Greek."

The fact that she didn't marry until age 27 (unusual for women at that time), didn't seem happy in the marriage, had no children, and was often said to have a "manly" appearance, led to speculation, then as now, that she was gay, or perhaps even, as would be said today, transgender.

She never publicly confirmed either during her lifetime, but in 1950, fellow golfer Betty Dodd moved in with the Zahariases. They roomed together on the LPGA tour, and Babe's biographer, Susan Cayleff, herself openly gay, wrote, "They never used the word "lesbian" to describe their relationship, but there is little doubt that their relationship was both sexual and romantic."

She won the 1946 U.S. Women's Amateur, and in 1947 became the 1st American to win the British Ladies Amateur. She won the Women's Western Open 3 times. Fellow Texan Byron Nelson, the top male golfer of the 1940s, said that he knew of only 8 men who could outdrive her. She said, "It's not enough just to swing at the ball. You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it."

In 1950, she was a founding member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). That year, she completed what was then considered the Grand Slam of women's golf, winning the 3 tournaments then considered "majors": The U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Women's Western Open. Also that year, the Associated Press voted her the Greatest Female Athlete of the 1st half of the 20th Century.

In 1953, Babe was diagnosed with colon cancer. In 1954, she made one of the most-heralded comebacks in sports history -- if, that is, you consider golf to be a sport -- when she won the U.S. Women's Open, at the age of 43, while wearing a colostomy bag.

She used her fame to raise awareness for cancer, and her foundation donated to cancer clinics. She was honored for this at the White House by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, despite the efforts of Donald Trump, is still the President most identified with the game of golf.

But her cancer returned in 1955. Despite her illness, she won the last 2 tournaments in which she played. She is alleged to have said, "I can't die now. I'm just learning how to play golf." The illness disagreed, and its opinion carried on September 27, 1956 in Galveston, Texas. She was only 45.

George Zaharias died in 1984. Betty Dodd died in 1993.

In 1975, Susan Clark starred in the TV-movie Babe, winning an Emmy Award. Life imitated art: Former football star Alex Karras, himself of Greek descent, was cast as George, and he and Clark soon married.

In 2000, despite all the advancements in women's sports over the preceding 50 years, the Associated Press backed up its 1950 announcement by naming Babe Didrikson Zaharias the Woman Athlete of the 20th Century. Sports Illustrated named her the 2nd-greatest female athlete of all time, behind the more recent track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee. ESPN named her 10th on their list of the Top 50 Athletes of the Century, highest among women. Golf Digest magazine ranked her 17th on their list of the greatest golfers, 2nd to Mickey Wright among women.

She has been elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, and the Sports Halls of Fame in the States of Texas, Colorado and Florida. Her hometown of Beaumont, Texas opened the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum.

In 2007, Charles McGrath of The New York Times wrote of her, "Except perhaps for Arnold Palmer, no golfer has ever been more beloved by the gallery."

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September 27, 1956 was a Thursday. It was a day off for what would eventually be called Major League Baseball. Football was in midweek. And the NBA and NHL seasons were a few weeks away from starting. So there were no scores on this historic day.