George Babich
Born:
December 3, 1920
New York, NY
Died:
February 14, 1981
Bayonne, NJ
Career
1940-41 Fordham University (College)
1942-42 Fordham University (College)
1942-43 Fordham University (College)
1946-47 Jersey City Atoms (ABL)
1946-47 Saint Peter's University - New Jersey (College) Head coach
1947-48 Scranton Miners (ABL)
1947-48 Saint Peter's University - New Jersey (College) Head coach
1948-49 Saint Peter's University - New Jersey (College) Head coach
1948-49 Brooklyn Gothams (ABL)
Babich played both football and basketball at Fordham. He would play basketball in the ABL while coaching at Saint Peter's University, and then was a professional wrestler in the 1950's.
There was another George Babich from DeKalb, Illinois, born in 1918, died in 1984. His obituary says nothing about Fordham, Saint Peter's, football, wrestling or basketball; he lived for years as an electrician in Chicago. Not the same guy, but he is identified as the baseball player on Wikipedia.
Source:
Stats:
I'm pretty sure the Wikipedia article does in fact have the correct birth / death dates (April 4, 1918 – July 22, 1984).
ReplyDeleteIf you look through all of the article's references, they corroborate each other and all lead to the same guy. The smoking gun is the reference citing the "Biographical Dictionary of Professional Wrestling, 2d ed." that lists Babich as the same person who played football at Fordham and went on to have a coaching career at Saint Peter's. The Fordham Hall of Fame reference says Babich played basketball there. The FindAGrave reference pinpoints the exact dates of birth and death, with the year of birth matching the Biographical Dictionary's year.
I don't think this is 'George Babich, Dec 3 1920 - February 1981'
Based on further research and input from other researchers, I believe the Biographical Dictionary of Pro Wrestling" has the wrong Babich identified.
DeleteGeorge Babich, who played basketball at Fordham University was born on December 3, 1920 and died in February 1981. He served in the Navy in Hawaii in 1944 (where he pitched for the Navy Flyers baseball team) and was back in the states in 1945 taking a training course at Colgate. He played basketball with the Jersey City Atoms, Scranton Miners and Brooklyn Gothams (all of the ABL). He coached at St. Peters University, Jersey City and Cardinal Farley Military Academy, New York. He played minor league baseball, briefly, in 1949 with Stamford in the Colonial League and was a professional wrestler in the 1950s. After getting a master's in social studies at Seton Hall, he worked as a professional fund raiser until his death, aged 61, in 1981. He was inducted into the Fordham University Hall of Fame that year.
ReplyDeleteGary Bedingfield
www.baseballinwartime.com
Thank you for helping me out! Updated the info
Delete