Healthy Mind, Healthy Body
Boston Globe editorial, January 7 1920 “The Athens of America”
On Babe Ruth’s sale to the Yankees
There is much to be said on both sides, and the fonts gathered at the daily meetings of the Hot Stove League have already begun to do full justice to the sale of Boston’s colossal fence buster.
The Hub of the Universe, also known as the Athens of America, is undeniably “het up” on the prospects of next season. It is possible that unscholarly persons will rise and remark that the prevailing excitement concerning a man who merely made 29 home runs is unbecoming Boston’s reputation as a center of learning. If any assertion of that sort is made, it will only indicate a lack of classical culture.
Ancient Greece was both the intellectual and athletic center of the world. Much has been written about the simple chaplet of olive leaves as the only prize for winners of the Olympic games. That was all they were given at the stadium, but when they reached home they received substantial rewards -- a jeweled casket filled with gold, a house and lot, no doubt a wife -- possibly more than one -- and the esteem of the highest circles of society.
The Stadium of Athens was laid out by Lycurgus, the orator. Praxiteles and Phidas, the sculptors, were not above making statues of great athletes. Pindar wrote odes to them.
Any Bostonian who feels sad on the subject of Mr. George H. Ruth may remember Athens and then give full vent to his grief in public.
excerpted from Big Bam by Leigh Montvale
