The Babe’s Daughter, Dan Jenkins: Great Tributes

Julia Ruth Stevens, 2006

Two daughters who adored their fathers. 

Julia Ruth Stevens died Saturday at 102. She was the adopted daughter of Babe Ruth and, as long as she lived, referred to him as “Daddy,” as Richard Goldstein notes in his masterful obituary.
 
Dan Jenkins, one of greatest sportswriters, died Thursday at 90. He was eulogized by many admirers in his business, the best coming from, of course, his daughter, Sally Jenkins, sports columnist at the Washington Post.
 
Sally, terrific writer that she is, described the hectic and eccentric life of a sports columnist who was usually at a golf tournament or football game when the family gathered for Thanksgiving and other holidays.
.
Her dad was as glib about the indignities of old age as he was about golfers who mis-read the terrain of the course. Sally tells about her dad wheeling himself down the hallway of the hospital heading toward a presumed quadruple heart bypass.
When he emerged, he was told he had needed only a triple.

"I birdied the bypass," he pronounced.
 
That’s it. I’m not going to try to duplicate the Jenkins family, father or daughter. Read Sally’s tribute to her dad. The Washington Post has a pretty strong paywall, bless its heart, but you might be able to read it there, or the Chicago Tribune. Or pay for it.
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
 
https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-spt-sally-jenkins-remembers-father-dan-jenkins-20190309-story.html
 
Plus, Bruce Weber’s excellent obit in the NYT:  
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/obituaries/dan-jenkins-dead.html
  
Babe Ruth’s daughter also receives a brilliant tribute in the Monday NYT. She was the daughter of Babe’s wife, Clare Hodgson, and was adopted and treated royally, as a daughter by the gregarious, larger-than-life Babe.

No doubt she witnessed, and heard about, examples of Babe’s excesses, even after he stopped playing. As subtle as a diplomat, she discussed “Daddy” as she saw him – a man who made egg-and-salami sandwiches and took her golfing out in Queens. And when she started dating, he insisted she be home by midnight. Imagine: The Babe. Enforcing a curfew.

They lived on the Upper West Side, in a 14-room apartment; whenever I am in that neighborhood I envision The Babe, with a cap on his head, walking on Riverside Drive or thereabouts, just another West Side burgher.  

She was an ambassador not only for “Daddy” but for baseball itself, waving to adoring crowds at the closing of “The House That Ruth Built,” waving to adoring crowds at Fenway Park, where The Babe first pitched shutouts and hit home runs.

When my alma mater, Hofstra University, held an academic conference on The Babe in 1995, she and her son, Tom Stevens, represented the Babe and gave out Babe Ruth bats to a few lucky people, including me.
https://lwww.nytimes.com/1995/05/01/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-babe-redbirds-and-a-sunday-game.html

But that’s enough from me.
Better you should read Richard Goldstein’s obituary of Mrs. Stevens: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/obituaries/julia-ruth-stevens-dead-babe-ruth.html

Sally Jenkins, Dan Jenkins, Marty Jenkins (yes, twins)