Son Makes Good on Father’s Pledge

I recently read a story about my grandpa, Babe Dahlgren and his father Peter that I’d never heard before. After all the years spent talking with my grandpa, all the countless months researching his life and career, somehow this one slipped past me like the easiest of ground balls. The story appeared in the Minneapolis […]

Babe, Joe and Marilyn Monroe

There was something about his swing that caught Babe’s eye long before the country had a chance to admire it – long before songs would be written about him. It was 1933 and Babe Dahlgren was in his second full season as the first baseman for the San Francisco Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast […]

Strasburg in Syracuse Ninth Start: Getting Lost

His ninth start is a Monday late in May. I leave early in order to make friends with Syracuse. ‘Making friends with the city’ means getting good and lost on my way to a bookstore, and then driving in circles on three different routes from the bookstore to the ballpark. I see De Witt and […]

Remembering Babe Dahlgren: A Video Montage

When I first met Matt Dahlgren, thanks to the power of Facebook, his grandfather Babe was merely the answer to a trivia question: Q: When Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak ended on May 2, 1939, who replaced Gehrig in the Yankees’ lineup? A: Babe Dahlgren That was the extent of my knowledge about Babe’s career […]

Book Review: “Rumor in Town”

The story of Ellsworth “Babe” Dahlgren is about more than just the life of a ballplayer. It’s about redemption, loyalty, promises made and kept, and love; love between a grandfather and grandson, between a player and his boyhood idol, and between a man and the game he fell for at age six while sitting in […]