Babe Didrikson Zaharias was one of the most extraordinary athletes of all time. She was a champion in basketball, track and field, and golf. She also swam, boxed, played baseball, and many other sports. In 1950, she was named the greatest woman athlete of the first half of the 20th century.
This story happened to Babe when she was a child. She liked to play ball very much. One day, when she was in elementary school, her mother sent her to the shops to buy meat for dinner. On the way home, Babe met some boys playing baseball. She put her bag with meat under the tree and joined the game. An hour later, her angry mother came up, looking for the meat. Babe pointed to the place where she’d left it. A dog was happily eat-ing up the last of the meat!
The mother was very angry — she didn’t know yet that her daughter was a future champion!