Tag Archives: Babe Ruth

Jackie Mitchell: The Seventeen-Year-Old Girl Who (Probably Legitimately) (Shut Up Let Us Have This) Struck Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

“Why, hell, they were trying, damn right. Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they’ve been any different?”

~Jackie Mitchell, Throwing Shade at Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

jackie mitchell

In every way, outside of the action on the field for like 95% of games, baseball is the most exciting American sport. Well, that might not be true, but the history of baseball is definitely more fascinating than the history of any other sport. At least it’s fascinating to us. We’ve got an entire section of all the crazy hijinks that happened in early American baseball history.

So why did it take us this long to talk about the teenage girl that struck out two of the best batters of all time? Well, because it happened forever ago, sorry, we’re not all-knowing wizards with encyclopedic knowledge of every single instance of American lore, or at least we recognize that we aren’t when we’re mostly sober.

But yes! Jackie Mitchell, when she was just seventeen years of age, somehow managed to strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. That’s a thing that happened. And we’re going to have to talk about it.

Jackie Mitchell: The Seventeen-Year-Old Girl Who (Probably Legitimately) (Shut Up Let Us Have This) Struck Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

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The 10 Greatest Drinkers in American History

“Wait, if I’m not on this list, then it’s clearly bullshit.”

~Every AFFotD staff member

Oliver Reed, September 1979.

Alcohol is a lot like sex—90% of the population really enjoys it, and they’re all kinda made uncomfortable by the 10% that doesn’t.  We at America Fun Fact of the Day make it our mission to celebrate alcohol and the Americans who drink it.  For example, everyone reading this has consumed alcohol at some point within the past week—we managed to make a teetotaler firewall that automatically directs people that don’t drink to the google image results page for the search “third degree burn + penis.”

We of course celebrate alcohol in its many incarnations here, as well as the great consumers of alcohol.  Naturally, America is a great nation of great drinkers, and trying to find, say, the ten best drinkers in American history would be a foolish act of hubris, almost offensive to the very same Americans you are attempting to tribute.  So let’s list the ten greatest drinkers in American history.

The 10 Greatest Drinkers in American History

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The Top 10 American Athletes (Determined By Someone Other Than AFFotD)

“Get your shit together, ESPN.”

~AFFotD Research staff

Because we are American, and have the appropriately diverse staff that is 50% male and 25% females that are cool and like sports and junk, we clearly needs sports as a way to escape the soul crushing frozen darkness that is American winter (shut up California, stop bragging).  We’re so desperate for an impressive athlete that even today, when you make a joke about Tonya Harding, most people will respond by going, “Whyyyyy?  Whyyyyyy?” (The handful of people who didn’t respond this way replied with “Who?” and “oh you mean that beefy boxing chick?”)

Yes, we like sports.  And we don’t care who knows.  And since we’re still in a bit of a daze as our brain cells recover from the battle field massacre that we call “New Year’s Eve falling on a weekend” we decided we’d do something lazy, like look up someone’s list of the top 10 American athletes and do a quick blurb on why each of them are American.  But when we checked ESPN, we saw that they listed the top 10 North American athletes.  Which shouldn’t’ have been a problem, except they put a goddamn Canadian on the list.  Eww.  Gross.  Eww.

So we found the website Made Men and decided to use their list instead.

The Top 10 American Athletes (Determined By Someone Other Than AFFotD)

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AFFotD Oscars For Deserving American Actors (Part 1)

“And the Oscar goes to…”

~William Shakespeare, probably


In 1929, Hollywood held the first, “Hey guys, aren’t we awesome?” party that eventually went on to be known as the “Academy Awards.”  Ever since that point, the Oscars have become a yearly tradition meant to celebrate brilliant films, powerful performances, and weird dresses.  And while the Academy Awards carry with them a lot of prestige and respect within the film circles, there is one little problem with them.  They are not nearly American enough.

Every  year, there are notable Oscar snubs, but worse than the snubs is fact that, throughout the past 82 years, some of the most quintessential American roles have never been recognized by the Academy.  We at AFFotD are here to fix that.  We’re giving out official Oscars to the four American actors who have been repeatedly screwed over (most of them are on staff) by the Academy, and for good measure we’re going to commit copious amounts of assault and rob the awards from other recipients who are not nearly American enough to deserve the honor.

While this isn’t a black-tie event, tuxes are recommended (it really classes up the part where we mercilessly beat other actors).  We’ll wait for you to change.

That’s better.  And now, to name our post-award recipients of Academy Awards.  America style.

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America Fun Fact of the Day 3/6- March 6th in American History

“Jesus guys, can’t you come up with a topic that’s a little more specific?”

 

~JFK III, Official AFFotD Dauphin


 

While having our weekly lunch of jumbo hot dogs, pint glasses of bourbon, and a scientifically worked out ratio of callgirls and callboys (AFFotD is an equal opportunity employer), we all sat back in our den of glutton debauchery (other offices may crudely refer to it as a “lunch room.”  Or a “sex dungeon,” depending on where you work and how good your Union is) to reflect on today as a glorious day in America.  And even though roughly three states (including Hawaii) are getting direct sunlight at the moment, and March continues its bland tradition of being the “Billy Baldwin of the Calendar months,” we were still able to intake glorious amounts of calories while burning them off immediately after in a whole slew of morally questionable activities.  Oh, we forgot to mention that the hot dogs that we ate were stolen, and the bourbon distilled in our offices was made in a 1920’s prohibition era sill.  Seriously, the whole place smells like grase, ethanol, cereal, and latex.  It’s glorious.

We couldn’t quite put our finger on what was drawing us to this day, March 6th, and being particularly important in American history.  So, we took our historical staff out of their tequila-filled-baths and sent them to let us know what was American about today.  Here was their list.

Today’s American History of America in America (American Edition)

1810- Illinois passes the first vaccination legislation in the history of America.  A Crazy Chinese Double Agent Health Ranger, Mike Adams, would tell you that this was the beginning of the government’s plan to poison us or brainwash us or something?  Normal people would say that it was the beginning of less kids having to die due to preventable illnesses.  Six in one hand, half a dozen in the other.

1836–  175 years ago today, the Alamo finally fell to Mexican forces after a 13 day siege.  Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and many other notable badasses perished, but not before taking out a shitload of the enemy with them.  Years later, this sacrifice would serve as the inspiration for the ending scene of Armageddon.

1899- Aspirin is discovered, allowing millions of Americans to confuse “minor joint pain” with “heart attacks,” making Bayer executives have to announce, frustratedly, “It treats both!  It’s magic, okay you guys?”  Mike Adams probably thinks aspirin is a tracking beacon or some shit.

1922- Babe Ruth signs a 3-year contract with the New York Yankees with the New York Yankees for $52,000.  This being the 1920s, that was enough money to buy over one million steak and kidney pies, this being a form of currency during the Great Depression.

1967- Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Joseph Stalin, defects to America from the U.S.S.R., because Fuck Russia.

2011–  America Fun Fact of the Day staff decides to post short, easily googleable information for its fun fact, resulting in mass protests across the globe.

Babe Ruth Drinks and Smokes His Way Into the Record Books

“It’s simple kids, if you drink and smoke and eat and screw as much as me?  Well, kiddos, someday you’ll be just as good at sports!”

~Babe Ruth


There’s something about baseball that resonates with America.  Maybe it’s memories of sitting at the ballpark, drinking a beer while scarfing down eight hot dogs after forging a sick note for your third grade teacher.  Maybe it’s memories of suspenseful chess matches between evenly matched teams, the thrill of finding your team in the bottom of the 9th inning with two outs and the bases loaded.  Maybe it’s your appreciation for the nuances of the “balk” rule.  It isn’t that last one.

But more importantly, the players that the sport grew up around were America incarnate.  Baseball was a sport where a you could take a man with the name “Mordecai,” chop off two of his fingers, and have him pitch for the Chicago Cubs, and not only would he thrive, he would win two world series and be a hall of famer despite looking like he should work behind the counter at a convenience store in the south.

This is the face of a man who has struck out 1,375 professional sports players.

But really, many of baseball’s greats helped express what was truly American about us.  Ted Williams was a patriotic war veteran whose interests included batting .400 and having his head cryogenically frozen.  Like America.  Rumor has it that Joe DiMaggio married the hottest woman in the world at the time primarily so he could say that he was “Dick cousins” with JFK.  Like every American would.  Ty Cobb was a horrible racist who once beat up a cripple.  Uh, forget that we mentioned that last one.

But what ballplayer was more patriotic than both a deformed Indiana pitcher and a Georgian bigot combined?  How about an overeating, alcoholic fat man with a sex problem and a tobacco addiction.  No, we’re not talking about the gay love child of Uncle Sam and George Washington, we are of course talking about…

Babe “you’re next, sweetheart” Ruth.

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Babe Didrikson Could Kick Your Ass

“They say it’s unladylike to play professional sports.  But, they also say it is unladylike to bite the head off of bats.  Which I do just about everyday.”

~Babe Didrikson Zaharias

While flipping through some old timey newspapers, a few of our interns stumbled across a photo of one of the more American looking people they had ever seen.  In a track and field uniform, with a snarl and a javelin, we saw a square jaw and a stare that said, “If you fucking touch me, I will end you.”  It haunts us to this very day.

“Who is that guy, and what did we do to piss him off?” we all thought aloud (which is more “speaking” then “thinking” when you think about it).  And as we studied this picture, wondering if we had unleashed some sort of voodoo vengeance curse upon the office, AFFotD’s “pretend to be in advertising guy” Jon Hamm came through with a sudden revelation.

“Holy shit, you guys.  That’s a chick.  That chick looks like she’d kill any of us for looking at her the wrong way.”

John Hamm was right.  We could see the distinctive femininity (boobs) that was masked by her dead-cold death glare.  After some digging, we discovered that this was none other than Babe Didrikson, two-time gold medalist, Hall of Fame golfer, and 5 time AP Female Athlete of the year.

We here at America Fun Fact of the Day came to the realization that in our entire history, we have not done a fun fact about a member of the fairer sex.  There is no rhyme or reason behind it, other than the fact that statistically there are more male Lion Hunters than female Lion Hunters, but American History is chalked full of Sexy Ladies doing Dangerous Feats of Awesome.  So it was high time we at least gave proper respect to one of them, especially if it looked like her eyes were hate raping us from beyond the grave.

On your mark, get set…don’t even fucking try it

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