Remembering Babe Didrikson on her 100th Birthday

The Takeaway

Before there was a Michael Jordan or Martina Navratilova, long before Tiger Woods or even Jackie Robinson, there was a woman named Babe Didrikson Zaharias who dominated sports for a quarter century. To the delight and fascination of the public, she was able to beat top athletes, both male and female, at sports ranging from bowling to diving. She earned Olympic gold medals in the hurdles and javelin, all-American status in basketball, dozens of golf championships, and a spot on ESPN’s list of top ten North American athletes of the century. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Don Van Natta has written a new book about Babe that comes out in time for what would have been her 100th birthday. The book is called “Wonder Girl: the Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.” He joins us from Miami, Florida.

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