"Babe Roof"

[Gerald Cohen]

     Puns involving "Babe Roof" are nothing new.  In the 1950s I read a
book which contained a joke which  almost certainly  goes back at least to
the 1930s:

    A fellow wolks into a bar with his dog and tells the patrons his dog
can talk.  Bets are taken, and the fellow asks his dog: "What's the top of
a house called?"  The dog answers: "Roof!"

     There are some groans among the patrons, but the fellow then says
he'll ask the dog a second question.  He turns to the dog and asks:
"What's the top of the mouth called?"  The dog asnwers:  "Roof!"

    The patrons are about to throw the fellow and his dog out, but the
fellow asks for a chance to ask the dog one more question.  He looks
intently at the dog and asks: "Who's the greatest baseball player in the
history of the game?"  The dog answers: "Roof!"

    At that point the patrons lose patience and throw both the fellow and
his dog out.   When they're both outside the dog looks up to his master and
says: "Maybe I should have said Ty Cobb?"

-----Gerald Cohen

>From: G S C <gscole at ARK.SHIP.EDU>
>Subject:      Babe roof
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

>
>Thought that I'd found something unique, until I did some further
>search.  The info below is presented, merely for the record.  Have no
>idea what might be the date of the earliest cite for 'babe roof'.
>
>An article by Dinn Mann (Kansas City Star) appeared in this morning's (3
>OCT 1999) Sunday Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA).  Mann's grandfather was
>Judge Roy Hofheinz, who "envisioned the planet's first indoor baseball
>stadium, the Astrodome" (p.C-2).  Mann notes that "talk of a sport's
>first ceiling (we called it babe roof for grins) was countered with
>countless scoffs."
>
>Presuming that the phrase was unique, I ran an AltaVista search, and
>found the following sites:
>
>The following refers to Sammy Sosa, "Just call him Babe Roof."
>http://cgi.cnnsi.com/baseball/mlb/1998/target61/flashbacks/ss1998.html
>
>The following refer to a project name, for the roofing of a church
>building:
>http://www.veronaonline.com/fccv/bell9905.htm
>http://www.veronaonline.com/fccv/bell9902.htm
>http://www.veronaonline.com/fccv/bell9812.htm
>
>George S. Cole   gscole at ark.ship.edu
>Shippensburg University



gcohen at umr.edu