[Ads-l] Babe Ruth Quote (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred
> Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2014 9:54 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Babe Ruth Quote
> 
> Can anyone shed any light on the origins of Babe Ruth's attributed
> quote about "I had a better year than he did"?  It is curious that
> there seems to be no pre-1947 evidence for it, although it is said to
> have been uttered long before that.  Barry Popik has written about
> this on barrypopik.com and didn't find anything pre-1948.  I haven't
> searched the Sporting News on paperofrecord.com because I don't have
> a subscription. Fred Shapiro
> 

Robert Creamer's 1974 biography calls the quote "apocryphal".

11/29/1947 _Jamestown [NY] Post-Journal_ p. 13 col 2
"Finally he earned $80,000, more than the President of the United States. When a cut was proposed in 1932, and that comparison was made, he said, "What the hell has Hoover got to do with this Anyway, I had a better year than he did." " 
[From a review of Tom Meany's new book, _Babe Ruth_.  So I'd suspect Meany was the origin of the quote.  He was a NYC sportswriter who had covered Ruth, so the quote may be accurate.  Or maybe not.  As Wilson says, youneverknow]

And is paperofrecord still a thing?  Does _anyone_ subscribe to it?

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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