1st Recollections of pre-war players

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Posted By: Joann

Early elementary school, there was a book series of biographies that we had to pick from. I somehow picked a Babe Ruth. I remember it talked about St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys and showed a picture (line drawing illustration) of him not being able to cut the shirt material straight. It also showed one of Brother Mathias, and told the story of Babe catching a game at the school and the pitcher was getting hammered and Babe was laughing out loud at him, so Mathias put him in as pitcher to teach a lesson, and the rest was history.

There was another in the series about Knute Rockne. It talked about him not being able to speak English when he got here at a very young age. One day his mother saw him fighting out on the sidewalk with some other boys saying "Take this, take that", and him saying that at least he had learned English.

That's all I remember, those scraps of the stories and a few pictures in my mind's eye. But I think that may have been when I first started liking sports and baseball. I don't even know why I picked those two books - for all I know they were the only ones left.

I've thought about trying to find them but don't remember what the series was called. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get very far by googling "Ruth book mid-60's".

Good thread. Thanks.



J

ETA Just saw Bob's post about his book. How absolutely cool that you still have your copy. I'd give a lot to be able to even remember what mine were called so I could look for a copy.