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nc_girl2005 asked in SportsBaseball · 1 decade ago

Babe Ruth: Question about his adopted daughter

I know the girl (Dorothy) was the daughter of Babe Ruth's mistress Juanita Jennings. And She allowed her daughter to be adopted by Babe and his first wife Helen Woodford. My question is why did this take place? "Juanita" sounds like a ethnic name so I was wondering if the mistress was black. I can not locate a picture of her anywhere. Did Juanita allow her to be adopted to protect her child because she was a mixed baby?

I am trying to prove to my mom that Babe Ruth was white. She says they adopted because he was a "light skinned black man" and his wife was white so it was frowned upon back then for a black man and white woman to have children together. Which doesn't make sense because they would have frowned upon the fact that they were married as well.

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    There was, in his time, enough speculation that the Babe was black due to his nose and his lips and the stereotype, that other teams would call him a "half-n..... " (I won't use the actual word, but you can guess.) And he would yell back, "Listen, you guys, call me anything you want, even a c---sucker, but lay off the personal stuff, will ya?" So he was aware of it. But his family has been thoroughly researched, and he was of almost completely German ancestry.

    As for Ms. Jennings, I know nothing about her, but it wasn't completely unknown for non-Hispanic women to be given Spanish names. Senator McCain's mother was born in 1912, shortly before the Babe's big-league debut, and her name is Roberta. (For all the jokes about McCain's age, his mother just turned 96 and still does campaign appearances with him.)

    It could (underline could) also be that Ms. Jennings was Spanish, her ancestry purely from Spain, with no black or native Caribbean blood, as were Yankee legends Lefty Gomez and Lou Piniella.

    You might also be interested to know that it was recently discovered that the other man often credited as the greatest hitter who ever lived, Ted Williams, was the son of a Mexican or perhaps half-Mexican mother, but for whatever reason he ignored this part of his heritage.

  • 6 years ago

    This Site Might Help You.

    RE:

    Babe Ruth: Question about his adopted daughter

    I know the girl (Dorothy) was the daughter of Babe Ruth's mistress Juanita Jennings. And She allowed her daughter to be adopted by Babe and his first wife Helen Woodford. My question is why did this take place? "Juanita" sounds like a ethnic name so I was wondering if the mistress was black. I can...

    Source(s): babe ruth question adopted daughter: https://shortly.im/rTkXZ
  • 5 years ago

    Juanita Jennings

  • 1 decade ago

    all i know is that babe ruth was white

    i dont know any other race that could experience the kind of success he did in baseball while surviving on hot dogs and beer

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    ruth was white, juanita was white and dorothy was white..ruth hated blacks

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