Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
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Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Who Was Babe Didrikson Zaharias?
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Women's athletics has changed greatly since the early 20th century. But one fact remains - Babe Didrikson Zaharias was one of the greatest female athletes of all times. She dominated many almost every sport that she participated in - from sprinting, to hurdles, to javelin, to baseball, to tennis, to golf, and she was even a champion seamstress! Babe did it all! But to be a woman and an athlete in those days meant some obstacles and adversity.
Join us as we explore a hero of athletics that may not be as well known as her accomplishments warranted. She had no real rivals during her brief life as an athlete, but her accomplishments helped to pave the way for women's sports as we know it today.
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Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Dirt Nab City. The show about interesting dead people. I'm here with my buddy Kelly. How are you doing, Kelly?
SPEAKER_02Alex, I'm doing super great. I'm so excited to be here with you. Um, we're on our second recording of this session. I'll tell you, honestly, I do look forward to these sessions. They're a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's in some ways it's not natural. Just two dudes sitting around and talking for like an hour about one person, but it's it's certainly fun. Uh I I look forward to it. Yeah, and what does nature really have to do with it? So I got to thinking though, you know, when I I don't know what your process is when you go through picking these individuals. I know it usually involves you reading a 30-hour listening to a 30-hour book on tape. Yeah. Or going and visiting a museum or traveling to Europe. Uh grave site or something.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot of microfiche involved. But what to you, what makes an interesting person? Well, you know, again, uh it's very simple for me, and it's the whole premise of the show. It's somebody that I've heard of, but I don't know much about. So it's a name that I could say, yeah, she was this or he was that, but I can only describe one very high-level topical thing about them, and I don't know any of the backstory or any of that. So that's that's what makes an interesting person to me, is somebody who I've heard about for many years, but I couldn't tell you much more than one sentence about them.
SPEAKER_01That's good. I I have a little different standard. To me, uh, there's been so many people that I've almost talked about, and then upon researching them, I've turns out maybe they're known for something, but I don't find them now that interesting. They just had a pretty cut and dried life, they were successful, and then they died. And to me, that doesn't I'm always looking for some kind of uh superlatives or quirk or something uh unexpected or or something like that that makes them a little bit more interesting. Have have you started down paths before and then just aborted? Because I've done that a lot where I'm knee deep into somebody and then I quit.
SPEAKER_02I have not. Um I'm trying to think. I I think I was a little bit tempted by John D. Rockefeller. Although I I in the end, I thought I thought his story, yeah, I thought his story was pretty interesting, but um, but yeah, I I know what you mean. It's like somebody who's known for something, they're a household name, they're famous, and they're dead. So they meet our requirements there. But then it turns out they did this one thing, but otherwise their life was just crickets.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Now we could have done an hour on Michael Rockefeller for sure.
unknownRight, right.
SPEAKER_02He's he's the one that uh got eaten by cannibals, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah. That's the kind of interesting stuff I'm I'm usually looking for.
SPEAKER_02But but honestly, honestly, that's probably the only interesting thing he did.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's the thing is that like Betsy Ross wasn't famous in her own time and then became famous later. Um, if you haven't listened to the Betsy Ross episode, go ahead and and give that a give that a listen. In fact, Kelly and I were talking, and there's plenty of I don't know if I I want to call them lost episodes.
SPEAKER_02Back catalog.
SPEAKER_01There's there's a back catalog of episodes that don't get enough love. I think the Mr. Rogers episode is really, really good. I think um and and doesn't get nearly enough uh love, for example. But yeah, um I I'm looking for a different level of kind of uh a different um in order to qualify as interesting, I'm looking for you did more than just you know, we've heard of you.
SPEAKER_02So are you telling me that you started somebody and then decided not to do them and you dude switch?
SPEAKER_01I do that all the time. I do that all the time.
SPEAKER_02So give us give us the name of some people who didn't quite make the cut to Dirtnap City.
SPEAKER_01Someday we should do just like 10-minute episodes on people that I know that were famous enough. But the one I was really excited about doing for the last few weeks that I will tell you that uh because he just wasn't that goddamn interesting, was John Phillips Sousa. I thought, well, here's a guy. We got marching, uh we got football coming up here and and marching bands, and this was somebody I was exciting excited about introducing you to the world of marching band. And he's got a really cool name, Sousa. And I was gonna play clips and tell you about the Sousa phone, but you know what? Just kind of boring. Like you know, you played the violin and then you played this and that, and they never really didn't really do much with with uh like the marching bands as we know it. And it just kind of fell flat. And I was thinking, you know what? I if I'm bored reading about this, Kelly's really gonna be bored about this. So a lot of it I'm doing to please you also.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and then ultimately the audience, right? You know, you're my audience as far as as far as you're concerned. You don't see all the analytics, you don't get all the the the phone calls. I'm gonna give a shout out to my buddy Matt, who called me after listening to one of our episodes, literally called me and told me how much he enjoyed it. So, Matt. Which one? To which episode was it? I think, oh man, it was probably three weeks ago, four a month ago. He likes them all, but uh maybe it was Henry VIII.
SPEAKER_01I'll tell you another one that's that's that doesn't get enough love out there. I mean, I don't know, I don't know the analytics, but Jim Henson. Yeah that's a good episode. Do the do the back catalog, people. Go back if you like any of our episodes, go back and listen to uh some others. And I think the key for you listeners is to maybe click on someone you don't know anything about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really take a chance. Yeah, take a chance. Because because you'll find you'll find that when uh Alex and I dive into them, even if they're not that interesting, we make them interesting.
SPEAKER_01Right. And usually um neither one of us know very much about um.
SPEAKER_02No, it's just I mean, you could get all this in Wikipedia, honestly.
SPEAKER_01Uh so you don't say that.
SPEAKER_02I wouldn't I wouldn't see so so also just as long as we're pandering, uh, be sure to follow us. If if you haven't already hit the follow button on your on your uh podcast app, just hit that follow button and that will make sure that you get every episode when it comes out. Like it'll just it'll download automatically and be right there ready for you to listen to.
SPEAKER_01We're on let's say you let's say you got a MySpace CompuServe um forums, uh we're in the aim rooms.
SPEAKER_02Join us in our private aim room. Well, so so what you're telling me is the person you're gonna talk about today was your second choice.
SPEAKER_01Actually, the person I'm gonna talk about today was in the queue to talk about. Um, I I'm very excited about this person. I just went to a museum dedicated to this person um a few weeks ago. And um, so I'm armed with information. Um, but clearly this person is one of my heroes and and somebody that um kind of fits in that wheelhouse. If we all know the name, but only surface level, and I'm gonna explain a little bit about this person.
SPEAKER_02And I guess if somebody has an entire museum dedicated to them, then they must have done something pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01It's a small museum, but they're but it's but it's really cool. Can you tell me where the museum's located? I'm about to do that. Yeah. Yeah. All right, all right, let's get going. You've probably driven by this museum. If you've ever driven from Houston to New Orleans, you've driven by this museum because the museum's located in Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont. And it's a small museum off of I-10, and it's uh really just a room, but it's uh it's uh you can see it from the freeway. This person was known as being from Beaumont, although she was born in 1911 in Port Arthur, Texas, which is uh part of the Golden Triangle. Do you know the Golden Triangle is?
SPEAKER_02No, no, in Texas? You never heard of the Golden Triangle? I've heard of the Bermuda Triangle.
SPEAKER_01No, the Golden Triangle is Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange, Texas. Seriously? Yeah, it's the Golden Triangle. Yeah, yeah. Okay. She died in 1956 in Galveston, Texas. But really was no Beaumont.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna I think I got it. Do you? I'm a hog.
SPEAKER_01Nope. No, okay. Nope. Now think about that. She was born in 1911 and died in 1956. So uh just a a star that shone bright, only lived to be 45 years old. But most people say she was the greatest ever. The goat.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh Barbara Jordan?
SPEAKER_01No. All right. She was an athlete. Ah okay. And people say she was the greatest female athlete ever. Or at least in the you know, 20th century.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, you know, sports aren't my aren't my thing. But hold on, hold on. Let me think. Uh I'm thinking tennis player.
SPEAKER_01Is that right? I mean, she played it all, she did it all, and that's what we're gonna talk about.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Okay, hold on. Um I mean, if it hasn't come to you yet, you might not know the name. Female athlete. Yeah, you know, sports, sports are my weak weak uh my weakness.
SPEAKER_01No, but this is one you need to get if you don't know about her, you need to get educated.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh any more clues? Are you gonna hit me?
SPEAKER_01Um, you well, based on that, if you don't know who she is, you probably don't know off the top of your head. I do not. Her name was Babe. Babe. Babe Dietresson Zaharius. I have no idea who that is. Really?
SPEAKER_02You've never heard of Babe Dietrichsen Zaharius. I think you just made that up.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna Google that. I'm gonna GTS right now. Well babe. Hold on. Let's see what we get here. Babe Dietrichsson Zaharius. D how do you spell D? Oh, wow. As soon as I put in babe D, American athlete. Okay, okay. No. Golfer, looks like.
SPEAKER_01Well, are you gonna are you gonna do this or am I gonna do this?
SPEAKER_02Wow, okay. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01I've never heard of this person. Wow. Well, shame on our society then for not educating you to the greatest female athlete who ever lived.
SPEAKER_02Um you have to use the middle name. Um, I mean, is is that like would Babe Zaharias be enough?
SPEAKER_01Zaharias was her married name. She was Babe Dietrichson and then um um and then was married to George Zaharius. But uh let's go and uh talk about her. Um, she was the um she was such a great athlete that she was named um, you know, every year they give a greatest female athlete, and she was named greatest female athlete in 1932, and five times after that, including 1954. So imagine 1932, and then 22 years later, she was still considered the greatest female athlete. Like I said, she she she lived a short life, she died at the age of 45, but in that short time she conquered lots of different sports and was known as as the greatest. Uh, do you know who else was a star that shined bright from um Beaumont that died young or from Port Arthur, Beaumont area and died young? I do not. Janice Joplin.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. I did know that. But you reminded me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and she only lived to be 27, but from the same same area. Um, and you know, they uh they didn't overlap by uh but by maybe nine years. Uh different different lanes for sure. Yeah. Now Babe was uh named Mildred, her given name was Mildred, but nobody ever called her Mildred. Some say she was she got her nickname of Babe after hitting five homers in a baseball game in uh she was younger. And they she was named after Babe. Her mother said she had always called her uh Baby. Her parents were are Norwegian, so she called her Bibe, like B-E-B-E, like Bib like the store. Uh but both of her parents were from Norway. In fact, three of her siblings uh were born in Norway, but she was actually born in Port Arthur and grew up in Beaumont.
SPEAKER_02And she was my brother-in-law is Norwegian, so I'm gonna ask if he's heard of her. Oh well, she's not on she's an American, though. She's an American No, I know, but but she's from Norway, you know, her parents were from Norway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, babe was good at everything except school, really. Um, she was uh That's a recurring theme. Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it? That uh school's overrated in terms of getting getting you on this show. Um it wasn't algebra that did her in necessarily, though. I don't uh that's a call back to uh Colonel Sanders. Another great episode. Yeah um but she was like, for example, she was a champion seamstress.
SPEAKER_02She had won uh like the the uh state championship in uh sewing, which um you know I tried out for the seamstressing team and did you know what yeah, I didn't make it. You wouldn't be a seamstress, you'd be like a seamster. A seamster. Oh, well, maybe that's why I didn't make it.
SPEAKER_01I tried out for the wrong team, and you know you can't call them a sewer because that would be spelled like sewer.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that would also mean throwing seeds, tossing seeds around, right? Yeah, don't you were a sewer. Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01So she um, but she just wasn't that good at school. She had to repeat the eighth grade, so she was a year older than a lot of her classmates when she was in high school, but she actually ended up dropping out of high school without graduating.
SPEAKER_02Did she go to school in Port Arthur?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, she went to Beaumont High School. She's from Beaumont, yeah. She went to Beaumont High School. But she was even a singer and a harmonica player. And I don't know. I mean, back then, I don't know how easy it was to do this stuff, but you'd think coming from kind of in the middle of nowhere, Texas, she actually recorded and sold records playing the harmonica and singing. Um, and champion seamstress, and we haven't even started talking about her athletic ability yet. Wow. Well, when she dropped out of high school, she moved to Dallas, and they had this insurance company in Dallas called the Employer's Casualty Insurance Company. And they had this team called the Golden Cyclones, and they kind of played the AAU, the amateur athletic union, um, played uh had different teams, men and women, but they had teams for softball, basketball, and track, and um, they had these women's teams that would compete against other women. Now keep in mind, we're talking about the 1930s in the U.S. and there was no college sports for women back then.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. It was all men's sports.
SPEAKER_01We would be 40 years away from Title IX, which we'll talk about uh later, but uh 40 years away from any of that. So if you were an athletic woman, the only the only competition you had was to get on these kind of AAU circuits. So you'd work for the insurance company, but they would basically just hire you as a ringer to play the sports. I don't think she actually had to do anything with the insurance company at all, but they played softball. She didn't write policies or do underwriting, or I don't even think she was a secretary. She was dominant in softball. They played basketball, she was dominant. She played high school basketball too. She was really, really good at basketball and track. She she dominated. In fact, this golden cyclones, they dominated um basketball in the early 1930s. They won, I think, four championships in a row. In 1932, um, so babe is uh about 20, 21 years old now. 1932, they had a uh track competition, track and field competition, the golden cyclones. They had 10 events for women, track and field events. She competed in decathlon. She competed in well, not that no, they don't have the decathlon for women, but they did also didn't have the heptaffhlon. So these are 10 separate events. So in one of them? No, that's not a sport. They had 10 separate events. She competed in eight of them. And she won five, that won the gold medal in five and tied for first in another. In fact, she won the team competition and she was the only one on the team.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So she was a ringer.
SPEAKER_01She was dominant in everything that she touched. She was just a natural athlete. So the next year she was good enough to compete in the Olympics. So what year would this have been? 1932. In the Olympics and 1932, we're in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And in 1932, she was in uh she was track and field uh athlete, and she uh won the gold medal in the hurdles, which at that time were 80-meter hurdles for women. Okay, and she set a world record in her heat and in the finals. Wow. She won a gold medal in the javelin, which isn't anything like running hurdles, right?
SPEAKER_02That's the no totally different set of muscles. You know the javelin, right? Yeah, it's a spear, right?
SPEAKER_01She yeah, she won, she got the Olympic record in that. And then in the high jump, which is again a completely different thing, she uh tied for the world record, ended up tying the other woman, and uh they had a jump off. So there was, you know, they kept raising the bar and see who would who would get it. And Babe was actually disqualified for improper technique, so she ended up getting the silver. This was pretty controversial at the time. So you know how they do high jump now.
SPEAKER_02Have you ever seen Fallberry Fallberry flop, right? Fosberry, right? Fosberry flop.
SPEAKER_01Named after Dick Fosberry, right? And he invented, but prior to that, they had this thing called the Western Roll.
SPEAKER_02Don't ask me how I know that, by the way. Yeah, get that's way back in the recesses of my brain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you didn't get his name right, so you kind of uh thank you. But um, they had a rule at the time that said the feet have to cross the bar first.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02So it's like a kung fu kick now.
SPEAKER_01The feet go last. And the feet are the last thing to cross the bar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you go over over your back, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they had this thing, it was she used to do this thing called the Western roll. And that was kind of where your um it's uh it's a precursor to the Fosbury flop, where I think your your hands and your head are the last things to uh and you kind of jazz hand it so you get a little extra lift. Yeah. Well, anyway, she had been doing that the whole competition, but in this jump off, they had said that it was illegal and given the gave her the silver and gave the gold to um to this other woman named uh Gene Shiley. Gene. Now Jean Shiley was a friend of hers, but Gene Shiley uh in in her later years uh gave a lot of insight into Babe and and talked about uh and was a good source of information for different biographies that were written about her. And um, she said, you know, the the public saw her as a victim in in this Olympic scandal, but her competitors really didn't like her too much. She was she was off-putting to a lot of her competitors.
SPEAKER_02Wait, what was this the scandal meaning that she got disqualified?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, it yeah, because she was doing that same jump the whole time, right? And then she she got this silver medal, and people didn't like that. And she was a famous athlete at the time, too. I mean, she was she could because she was good at everything. So listen to these this quote from uh Jean Shiley. She said, you know, um, in terms of her competitors not really liking her, she said, babe either inspired great enthusiasm or great dislike. At the time, even though they competed in sports, girls were beat to be young ladies. And I think a lot of girls found her behavior a little beyond how they thought a young lady should act. The babe was very brash and she bragged a lot, but she was also very humorous, especially when she wasn't getting all the attention. She'd pull a harmonica out of her pocket and start to play it just to get attention. And nobody did anything better than she did. I don't care if it was swallowing goldfish, she would have to swallow more fish than anyone else. It wasn't Muhammad Ali who started this I'm number one stuff. Babe started it. So here he is, you know, here she is, this kind of brash, arrogant woman who was good at everything, would beat you at everything, and kind of let you know that too. At the time, the 1930s, that was not how people thought women should act. And even still today, I think there's different standards for women in sports when they um when they talk trash. Um, in this in this past Final Four, there was a little bit of a controversy. Uh, one of the women kind of got in an Other woman's face, and people said that you know she was that was kind of unbecoming, and they just don't say that to men. In fact, men that talk trash are kind of admired for it. She Jean Shile also said she was just so different from all the rest of the girls that it grated on their nerves. It could have been jealousy. That's the way Babe was, and it bothered some of the girls, but it didn't bother me. I was captain of the 1932 team, and I had to represent all the girls. I had been on the 1928 team, and I learned that there are a lot of people in the world and they're very different and very interesting. So Babe didn't bother me. In fact, she and I became friends and remained so, even though we're two entirely different people. So that's kind of if if that's all Babe ever did, that would have been incredible. Winning the gold and the hurdles, the javelin, and then practically the gold and the high jump. And if she rode off into the sunset at that point, we'd still be talking about her, even though that happened in 1932.
SPEAKER_02Well, and let's not forget the goldfish swallowing.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's funny that if you ever watch Happy Days, they always talked about uh goldfish swallowing. That was a bit ended up being Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That was a thing you did back in the like like it was something that you did to prove you were tough, or it was something to but today we just call it sushi.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I think fraternities used to do goldfish swallowing. Yeah, that seems like something you would do.
SPEAKER_02I've I've never swallowed a goldfish, but I have swallowed crickets uh on intentionally. I I was a camp counselor and we would go on a camp out, and I would tell the kids if uh this was kind of to get the kids occupied and get them away from us while we were making dinner. So I would say if you go catch crickets, I will swallow them. And so they'd bring me the cricket. I just or grasshopper, either one.
SPEAKER_01You would chew them though first, right?
SPEAKER_02No, no, swallow them. Oh, and then they would jump around. Yeah, yeah, jump around. Uh it was it was odd, but um, I never did a goldfish. Actually, a goldfish seems like it would be easier.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I was gonna say, if you could swallow one goldfish, you could probably swallow 75 goldfish. I mean, it's just right, it doesn't seem any harder.
SPEAKER_02But but crickets, the crickets and um grasshoppers do kind of get caught in your throat, like in your you'd have to follow it with some water or some we we had what we called bug juice, which was like a Kool-Aid that we would take on these campouts, and so I'd you know, put a cricket or a or a grasshopper down my throat, swallow it, and then chase it with bug juice.
SPEAKER_01You were the cool counselor, huh? How what's the oldest what's the oldest you ever were when you were eating crickets? Be honest here.
SPEAKER_02Last time I did it, I was probably 23, 22.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a little too old. Is it is it? I think 16 is probably the oldest where you're where you're doing it just to impress little kids. When's the last time you swallowed a cricket?
SPEAKER_02Well, that's not the old were you? That's not the point. 51. Come on, Alex.
SPEAKER_01What were you doing? What were you doing during our bio break? I've never been out. You know, they do have at the Museum of Natural Science here.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they have those cricket uh chips. They have all those things made of crickets.
SPEAKER_01So is you're justifying this now?
SPEAKER_02No, honestly, crickets are a good source of protein. They are actually uh more they're better for the earth, they're more ecologically friendly than beans.
SPEAKER_01I don't think they're a good source of protein. I think they're a source of protein. I watch Naked and Afraid, and they'll say, like the the narrator come on and he'll go, 30 crickets is equivalent to about one chicken McNugget. No, yeah, he'll say like one pecan.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I actually think eating crickets is the future. I think that we should eat more of that. You're really doubling down on that. I said it here first. It's it's definitely one of those things that people find gross, but those you've never tried those chips at the uh natural history museum in Houston?
SPEAKER_01No, they don't only have chips, but they have lollipops that have the cricket inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then they have chocolates with the crickets and ants and crickets.
SPEAKER_02I'm coming to Houston, and we're gonna get some of those and we're gonna have them.
SPEAKER_01And then we're gonna go to a fish store.
SPEAKER_02And then we're gonna get some goldfish, pet store. Yeah, I think maybe that's why all those girls didn't like her because first of all, their goldfish were missing, and second of all, her breath smelled like fish.
SPEAKER_01So I'd never said that she actually did that. The quote was, I don't care if it was swallowing goldfish, she would have to small more fish than anyone else. That I think it was just an example.
SPEAKER_02Well, if it's an example, then she must have done it. It was the kind of thing that she would This is what her friend said?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, the yeah, shyly.
SPEAKER_02So if you're ever interviewed for a book about me, are you gonna say, I don't care if it was eating crickets or grasshoppers, Kelly had to do more than anybody else.
SPEAKER_01One time, Kelly, um one time I dared you a lottery ticket. You that for a lottery ticket, you would drink milk out of a dog's mouth.
SPEAKER_02No, the opposite.
SPEAKER_01The dog would drink, yeah. You know, that's like I want to see the sequel to that. I want to see the dog drink out of your mouth.
SPEAKER_02There there is video of this, folks.
SPEAKER_01So wait, the dog drank out of your mouth. I want to see the opposite. I want to see you drink out of a dog's mouth.
SPEAKER_02I want to see you train a dog to hold milk in its mouth and lay still so I can do that.
SPEAKER_01With a milk in my mouth, and then the dog licked it out of your and all I gave you was a lottery ticket for that. And it didn't even win. Oh, that's beside the point. Yeah. So I mean, you're when I hear about swallowing goldfish, you're one of the first people that comes to mind.
SPEAKER_02I've never done it. I've never done it. Uh Alex, I'll tell you what. If if we if we can someday, I'm gonna say it right now, if we can someday make our living from Dirt Nap City Podcast, I will swallow goldfish. And you have to eat your hat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a little inhumane, though. You're an animal guy, I know that. Um I'm not sure that you'd be okay with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, are you saying they're unhappy down there in my stomach? I mean, it's are you calling me you calling it a bad place to go?
SPEAKER_01You would just have to pass them live. That's all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Along with a bunch of crickets.
SPEAKER_01All right, well, let's get back to Babe.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01So after the Olympics, um, she traveled around um in a with a team, a basketball team known as uh Babe Dietrichson's All Americans. So they kind of barnstormed in the Satchel Page episode. You talked about barnstorming barnstorming, where you would go from town to town.
SPEAKER_02And I think that was called the Satchel Page All-Stars.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably, right. This was a basketball team. Yeah. In your research on Satchel Page, have you ever heard of the House of David? No. Oh man, you would love the House of So the House of David, um, and then in in baseball history, the House of David's kind of um popular. They used to barnstorm. The house of David was I think Oh, was it a Jewish, a Jewish baseball team? They weren't Jewish, it was a it was kind of like a cult. They were called the Israel uh Israelites something, uh, House of David, but yeah, but but they were basically a cult. And they all had to now I do remember this.
SPEAKER_02They yeah, they all had beards and there there was something about Sachel Page's team playing against them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and actually at some point Sachel Page joined them and barnstormed, and a lot of major leaguers would join them from time to time, but they'd put on fake beards.
SPEAKER_02Like a Santa Claus beard. So did did Babe have to wear a beard?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably. Probably.
SPEAKER_02The House of David was did she join the House of David?
SPEAKER_01Uh, she didn't join them. No, no, you didn't have to join the cult to uh and I say cult kind of it's kind of mixed on whether or not they were an actual cult. They were a religious group that whose beliefs were out of the mainstream and they lived on a commune, and one of their leaders was convicted of sexual abuse. So very similar to a cult.
SPEAKER_02David Koresh.
SPEAKER_01Their their big thing was um fornication was sinful even if it was for procreation. Um celibacy. So you wouldn't. So it's not a really sustainable religion, right? That's why it's not around. But um, their big thing was about celibacy. So they would go around and I don't know what that has to do with baseball, but they would go around um from town to town, and they were really good baseball players, but they would have all had beards, and back then beards were out of fashion. So most people around, you know, there was a time when like all the presidents had beards, and then there was a time where nobody had beards. This was during the time where nobody wore beards, and um, and so they really stuck out, but um, but yeah, she she uh you know, baseball wasn't available to women, um, but she would play baseball with them. She also went around and played pool, she wasn't very good at it, but she, like you said, she had enough name recognition where she could go around and people would come around and see her do any athletic event.
SPEAKER_02She could play cornhole and people would go see her. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01So around 1935, so this is like three years after the Olympics, she started playing golf. Now she she used to embellish a lot about her life. So a lot of the biographies that have written about her, you have to take some of this stuff with a grain of salt. And she claimed that she had never played golf before. Her yearbooks showed that she was on the golf team. And by the way, like I said, I've been to this museum, so I've seen all of these artifacts.
SPEAKER_02So wait, there is a babe Dietrichson Zaharas Museum, Zaharias Museum in in Beaumont.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was there a few weeks ago, and it's pretty cool. They have all these artifacts and video and things that you can watch, and it's just really um, you know, immediately I thought of this uh show. So when she started playing golf in 1935, she was immediately good at it and uh good enough to like uh play. Well, she she didn't have amateur status because she was being paid to do the basketball, so she wasn't wasn't allowed to play on some of the women's tours. And amateurism was a big deal back then about establishing amateurism, and then you weren't allowed to, once you were professional, you weren't allowed to play with amateurs, and you had to sit out for three years if you wanted to retain your status.
SPEAKER_02But, anyways, well I remember even um the Olympics, we the US couldn't send professional American athletes to the Olympics for the American American American.
SPEAKER_01That was the case until 1992, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And now and now don't we send like the NBA team and just kill everybody?
SPEAKER_01No. But yeah. No, but yeah, I mean, we do send professionals, but uh, we don't uh it's it's actually don't dominate? No, no, no, because the game basketball? No, because the sports caught the world's caught up.
SPEAKER_02In fact, who's a better basketball player than America?
SPEAKER_01Well, this morning uh our our team lost to Germany in the World Cup. Um Germany. So Germany and Serbia are gonna be playing for the finals of the World Cup. It's a different game.
SPEAKER_02No soccer, basketball, basketball. Wow. There's a World Cup of basketball? Yep. Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01Um so in 1938, she played in a PGA event from with the men. Now she'd only been playing golf for three years, and she was already able to play with the men.
SPEAKER_02And um and she was this battle of the sexes at the Astrodome?
SPEAKER_01No, this was like she was competing with the men, like on a that's how good she was. And she would they teamed her up, it was in a pro-am, or like a celebrity pro am. They thought they'd get cute, and they had a gag where they would team her up with a wrestler and a minister. So you'd have like, you know, it was like a joke, right? Well, it turns out the wrestler was George Zaharius.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_01They um so kind of backfired. They thought it was a gag, and they actually ended up getting married within a year. Um uh George uh was a famous wrestler at the time. He was um back that was back when wrestling was, you know, uh a real deal. Uh well, you know, it was pre uh WWF, but it was like back in the day of uh still a lot of crazy storylines. And he was known as the crying Greek from Cripple Creek, he was from Colorado, and uh sometimes he was known as the Greek hyena. And his thing was he was a villain, but he was also cast as like the sore loser, which I love. I I think that's a great character.
SPEAKER_02The the uh if you're gonna have a character in uh so he would wait, he would wait uh after the match and beat him with a chair or something.
SPEAKER_01He would it would like lose and then get yeah, say it wasn't fair and cry about it. And I just think that's a great archetype, the sore loser.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that. I've heard of that. Lose and say, say he didn't really lose, he won.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I I really like that. And but he was always like either the villain or the sore loser, but people, you know, still love the villain in in wrestling, right? Well, once he met her, um, he had they had great chemistry together, and he ended up uh kind of quitting wrestling and managing her career. Um, and they had a great relationship. Um and uh, you know, he he lived way longer than than she did, you know. For I think he died in in the the 1980s. Um, of course she died in in the mid-50s, but uh but he uh devoted the even after she died. You know, he got that that hall of fame or that museum put up and he just kind of devoted the rest of his life, even though even though he married a couple more times, but he was really all about you know promoting her still. Well, she actually um dominated women's golf in the 1940s, she won 17 straight tournaments at one point. Wow, and the LPGA, the Ladies Professional Golf Association, uh didn't even start till 1950. So she was one of the founding members of that, and she won every title that there was available to win. I think every tournament that existed, she won at some point. She won 82 tournaments in total total. Now remember, this is a person who started off playing basketball, yeah. Track and field Olympic medalist, and then just took up golf later in life. Swallowing goldfish. 82. Let's not get started on that again. 82 golf tournaments. Even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was winning golf tournaments. The last her last tournament that she won was a month after she had uh colon cancer surgery, and she was doing it wearing a colostomy bag, and she still won the won the tournament. Just like one of the first just badass women that um athletics-wise. She also, you know, she would go and pitch in spring training um earlier in her career. She would she would go and pitch uh with the the uh the major league baseball teams, and she still holds the record. The baseball throw used to be a field event um in the AAU. I I I think women didn't throw the shot put back then, so they had a baseball throw. She still holds the record for the for this baseball throw. I mean, they don't really do that anymore, but right. Um, and then at the museum that I was at, where you could watch her play all these different sports. They had um movies of her playing these different sports. There was a whole segment on her playing football with like guys from Notre Dame, where she would they would show her like throwing a pass, they would teach her how to throw a football, and then they would slow it down and they would talk about how she just learned this today. And look, her motion is the exact same as this all-American player for Notre Dame. Or, you know, and and they were talking about how fast she was and just what a good like she could have been she could have been a great football player if she was a man. Um, it was really uh interesting um that museum just shows you could watch her play all these things. Tennis, she was a great tennis player.
SPEAKER_02Um probably dominate pickleball.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um now there was a lot of pictures in the museum of her friend named Betty Dodd. And it's enough to see where you see all these pictures, and it's just like her and her husband, and then Betty Dodd's always in these pictures too. I think we learned later in life that um that they had a romantic relationship as well. Um, Betty Dodd actually moved in with um Babe and George the last six years of their life. They were probably in love. Um they didn't um they didn't use um words, they never use words like gay or lesbian to talk about um babe. Um even in her biographies, they just talked about how you know Betty died and she had a great love, but they um nobody made a big deal about it either, though.
SPEAKER_02None of the press really Yeah, which is unusual for that time period.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if it was that unusual. I mean, I think there was a lot of baseball players back there, which that was the that was the main sport. A lot of baseball players were cheating on their wives and probably involved in domestic violence. And I think at the that time, sports writers just didn't get into that personal lives of of athletes back in the 30s and 40s. That just wasn't there. They saw a lot, you know, on the trains. And um, they just there was there was a clear um line that they they would draw on on that kind of thing. And you know, and she was a hero to many people. And I think the writers back then weren't interested in tearing down people's heroes, whether they were politicians or athletes. That line was was pretty clearly drawn back then. There's some great lines that you learn in the museum. The uh one one of the famous ones, and you can almost picture these uh 1930s reporters with the hat that says press on it, you know, yelling Christians, babe, and they'd say, Babe, babe, hey, babe, uh, is there anything you don't play? And she'd say, Yeah, dolls. You know. That's a good one. You could just picture that, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, she was a a hero to to a lot of people, but some people still said she was too manly. Uh, one sports writer back in the day said it would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up, and waited for the phone to ring. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like he wrote that, like, as a that was Howard Cosell. No, no, this was a sports writer.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it was uh this was the kind of thing that you could actually put in the paper back then, and people would be like, Yeah, yeah, that's that sounds like I'm sure being a female athlete anytime is difficult, and especially then, you know, with the double standards, with the pay differences differences between male and female athletes, especially one that is that good. Because if you're winning everything, you've got a target on your back, right?
SPEAKER_01Although it's probably easier for her in the 30s and 40s than people in the 70s and 80s because she really was one of one. There wasn't, you know, what you don't have is a she didn't have a rival. There's no other museum on the other side of the country of somebody that was just as good. You know, so she was kind of she was an enigma. And just yeah, she was just like so ahead of her time. That we use that phrase a lot in this show, but she was so ahead of her time that you couldn't even categorize her. And and so when they talk about she was too manly, they were saying that this this person that's just like just she just doesn't belong in this world with us right now. Uh another famous sports writer, though, I don't know if you've ever heard of Grantlin Rice, but he was a famous sports writer at the time. I haven't heard of him, and he he had a lot more glowing things to say about her. He said, He said, She is beyond all belief until you see her perform. Then you finally understand you're looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony of complete mental and physical coordination the world of sport has ever seen. Wow. And that's probably a better kind of epitaph to talk about her than she should be waiting by the phone.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, yes. I anything would be better than that, honestly. But but yeah, what a what an amazing um person and and kind of groundbreaking, right? Because ultimately it it wasn't something that I think men were intimidated. You know, we talk about this about a husband who is happy for his wife having success, um, but even a whole country to see somebody doing this well and beating all these uh other athletes and beating men at things, it's intimidating.
SPEAKER_01So there was a Simpsons episode when they actually mentioned Babe Dietrich and Zaharius. Really? Um, it was the episode where there they decided the women of Springfield decided they were gonna put together a uh do a calendar uh to to rival the police calendar that Chief Wigum was in.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And they were they decided they were gonna have a theme, and the theme was gonna be historical. Women. So Milhouse's mom went as Betsy Ross. She likes dressed up like Betsy Ross. And so Marge walked into the photographer uh studio and he said, Where are you supposed to be? And she was wearing a complete like it wasn't sexy at all. It was a complete golf uniform with the golf bag and everything. And she said, I'm she's I can't do a Marge Marge voice, but she says, Homer, I'm Babe Dietrichson Zaharius. She said she said, I'm the Tiger Woods of the 20th century, babe Dietrichsson Zaharius. And the photographer said, Well, let's have a little more, babe, unless Dietresson's Zaharius.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I, you know, and that that would have been lost on me. I love The Simpsons. I love how deep they go. I love the fact that they have jokes that I don't get.
SPEAKER_01Oh, right, right, right. So the sad part here on this tale is that you know she died in 1956. And um, you know, Title IX didn't come in until 1972. Now, I'm not I don't know how familiar you are with Title IX, but Title IX about women's athletics. Well, actually the funny part is Title IX doesn't mention athletics at all in it. But Title IX was a civil rights law that uh it came out in 1972 that prohibited sex-based discrimination uh in any school or any any education program that receives funding from the federal government. So that's like all public uh colleges and high schools in uh uh in the United States. And so it wasn't uh too long after that where they said, oh, this has to do with athletics as well. That um that uh that's discrimination if you have uh boys' basketball teams and you don't have girls' basketball teams.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And so in the 50, they just had their 50th anniversary of Title IX last year. And in in the ensuing 50 years, I mean the increase of women and and you know in sports has been unbelievable. And there's a lot of benefits in being in athletics that prior to Title IX, women couldn't take advantage of. You know, they just weren't weren't allowed. There was only the only things that were available to them, you know, extracurricularly were academic things and maybe cheerleading or seamster scene, uh goldfish swallowing. Yeah. They weren't playing golf or tennis or track and field or basketball. And it I think Babe would be so proud of what essentially she started. Um just the the I and I when I say she started, she started this idea of normalizing women's athletics, you know, being famous enough that um to be a household name um in in the same brand. I mean, when ESPN did their uh thing at the in 1999, they they named the greatest athletes of the century of the century, she was the 10th greatest athlete of the 20th century, men or women. Wow, you know, and and and that's behind you know, people like Jim Thorpe and Babe Ruth, and you know, people that are you know pretty pretty big time a lot more well known.
SPEAKER_02I mean, again, in in all honesty, I had if I had ever heard of her before, I didn't remember it. It was lost on me.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that really surprises me. I guess it also shows me that like you know, that that only travels so far that fame uh it goes Austin.
SPEAKER_02It it goes all the way from Beaumont to Houston, and then there's kind of a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01I guess I just mean athletic circles, you know. I'm I'm you know, like you're a big sports fan. Sure. And so she's a you know very famous person in that world.
SPEAKER_02But to get mentioned on the Simpsons, you have to be a sort of a cultural thing, too.
SPEAKER_01That's clout for you.
SPEAKER_02That's like I love the Simpsons. Yeah, I I think I know them pretty well, but I don't remember that episode, and I don't remember that reference.
SPEAKER_01Um, do you remember her their posing for the calendar?
SPEAKER_02No, I'm good. You know, uh I watched a lot of Simpsons for the first 10 years and then kind of dropped off. And and uh now I just I mean there's I'm sure there's more episodes I haven't seen than episodes I have seen at this point. Yeah, yeah. It's still on, right? It's it's uh thir 34 years in the running or something like that.
SPEAKER_01This episode was season 21.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay, then no, that wouldn't have been like the first 10 years, I could tell you everything, but after that, no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's always fun to go back and watch, just like with our episodes where it's go back and find some like lost episodes. That's right. Mr.
SPEAKER_02Rogers, yeah, that's right, Satchel Page talking about groundbreaking athletes.
SPEAKER_01So if you're ever on I-10 headed east out of Houston towards Louisiana, it's really you know, 45 minutes out of your life. You go in this little room. It's a it's a it's an interesting uh architecture where it's this circular building that's not very big, and you can just kind of go through the circle and go through her life and see her medals and see her accomplishments and see pictures of of Babe and see video. They have a nice nice video uh um screen that you can uh call up different things and uh nice woman the uh volunteer that works there. Uh and it's it's great. So if you're ever on that road, uh it's it's worth the time for sure. But uh, but yeah, and and um hopefully you'll uh you'll remember the name Babe Dietresson Zaharius now.
SPEAKER_02I will. I will. And you know what's interesting is just a couple of weeks ago we did an episode about PT Barnum, and I talked about a place you could stop on I-10 west. That's right. See the thing. So so really if you're driving along I-10, dirt nap city as you covered.
SPEAKER_01And early on, we talked about uh graves that you could go to in Ohio and Kentucky. And um, where was Andre the Giant? Where is he?
SPEAKER_02Uh Massachusetts, North Carolina, North Carolina, North Carolina, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_01So really you could make a dirt nap city kind of a uh you could take the whole summer pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll call it a pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if you live in Texas, it's good to get out of here for the summer. Go north. That's a good point. Actually, you don't want to go to Louisiana, I don't think, right now. It's probably just as just as hot and probably more sticky.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just I was just there.
SPEAKER_02So thank you, Alex. I like I said, it was not a name I was familiar with, so I don't feel as bad about not guessing it. If you had said somebody and I was like, oh, of course, that that always bugs me more than nope, never heard of her, but uh really good insight. And I actually think I, you know, even just in my quick Google search to make sure you didn't make up the name, I saw there's a movie called Babe.
SPEAKER_01Now you know who was in that movie was um uh so re- do you remember the show Webster?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it starred Alex Karras. Well, besides the little kid, there was Alex Karis who was mine, I was named after him, actually. Really? Um, he was a football player for the Detroit Lions back in the day when I was born. And his wife in Webster was also his wife on the show, and they made that movie together, and she played Babe, and he played George Zaharias.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow, okay. I did not know that. Um, have you seen the movie?
SPEAKER_01I think I saw it when it came out, but it was like a TV movie in the 80s. Wow, those are the best. And don't watch, and and it's not the same as Babe Pig in the City, that's a different movie.
SPEAKER_02Which is also a great well, babe, the original Babe the Pig was was a fantastic movie.
SPEAKER_01And then there's a Babe uh The Babe, which is John Goodman as Babe Ruth.
SPEAKER_02No, is that any good?
SPEAKER_01No, that's not a good movie. I don't like I think it was that good. But uh so there's lots of babe's uh movies to choose from. This is a TV movie, I think.
SPEAKER_02This came out in 1975. I'm looking at it right now. Is it 75? Susan uh 1975. It was uh directed by Buzz Kullik and it was Susan Clark. Susan Clark, yeah.
SPEAKER_01She's Alex Karras's wife. So it was later on that they got to on Webster.
SPEAKER_02And Slim Pickens is actually in that movie. Yeah, he's a good one. Yeah. Well, hey, awesome. You know, this was one that broke the mold for me a little bit, you know, as far as uh someone I had heard of but didn't know a lot about. This is someone I had never heard of and didn't know anything about. So I feel much smarter.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good. That's how Shackleton was for me.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's right. I kept saying he was the first guy at the South Pole. He had the yeah, I thought how can you not know this guy?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so now we're even. All right, we're even. Uh because because we're keeping score. Shout out to all the women athletes that are listening to us.
SPEAKER_02Uh yes, if you're a woman athlete, uh please.
SPEAKER_01We know it's not easy. It's not easy, and you probably even today have to hear some of this garbage that the guys say about uh women's sports. But just know I'm a big supporter, love women's sports, um, and uh love it that women are able to uh play sports at the level they're at now. It hasn't been very long, but I think y'all are making great strides, and um, I'm a big, big fan.
SPEAKER_02Amen, brother. All right, man. Amen, sisters.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, that was another episode of Dirt Nap City, the show about interesting dead people. Um, if you want to communicate with us, just email us at not at dirtnapcity.com and or and follow us. We have a Facebook page now, and um and you can uh find our podcast on well, I don't it doesn't do any good to tell them where we can find them because they've already found us for this.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Just just be sure to hit subscribe or follow or whatever that button is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. All right. Well, take it easy, guys. See you later, Kelly.
SPEAKER_02Bye, Alex. Bye, audience. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next time in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00Oh, which is my lip. Um,
