Stabler - Kid Athletes: True Tales of Childhood from Sports Legends

Copyright 2015 by Quirk Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging in
Publication Number: 2014956803

eBook ISBN: 978-1-59474-823-3
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-59474-802-8

Designed by Andie Reid based on a design by Doogie Horner
Illustrations by Doogie Horner
Illustration coloring by Mario Zucca
Production management by John J. McGurk

Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com

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ou may have heard their names. You may have seen their highlights. Maybe youve even cheered for them from the bleachers. The superstar athletes profiled in this book are world famous for their remarkable achievements. But we bet theres a lot about them that you dont know.

For example, did you know that NFL quarterback Peyton Manning once dared to dance the tango in front of his entire middle school?

Or that race car driver Danica Patrick got her start pushing the pedals on a go-kart?

Or that legendary hockey player Bobby Orr grew up picking worms on a farm?

Long before they became sports champions, these future superstars were just little kids who liked to run, jump, and play like everyone else.

Some of them learned early on that they had a special talent and then practiced every day to make sure they became the best they could be at their chosen sport.

Others had to leap over obstacles on the road to fame and fortune. Before they ever defeated an opponent on the playing field, boxing ring, basketball court, or racetrack, they had to figure out how to overcome the special challenges that threatened to hold them back.

Before vaulting to Olympic gold, gymnast Gabby Douglas first had to learn how to deal with bullies.

Basketball player Yao Ming grew up thinking that he was too tall to fit through a doorwaylet alone make it in the professional basketball leagues of the NBA.

Lionel Messi had the opposite problem. One day, he would become the worlds biggest soccer star. But as a kid, he was told many times that he was too small to succeed on the team.

And all these great athletesno matter where or when they livedhad homework to finish, parents to answer to, and brothers and sisters to deal with. Not to mention the occasional unruly horse.

In Kid Athletes , well ride along with the superheroes of sports and learn how they began their charge into the record books. Each took a different path to get there. But they all had one thing in common:

Every one of these amazing athletes started out as a little kid.

I was a bad kid, admitted Babe Ruth in his autobiography. Like many things the loud and boisterous New York Yankees legend said, that was something of an understatement.

In fact, Little George, as he was known before he earned his famous nickname, was officially labeled incorrigible by his own parents. He was impossible to control at the age of eight!

How did little George get so bad? For starters, he learned about misbehaving right under his own roof. On the ground floor of the Ruth familys apartment was the roughest, toughest saloon in the city of Baltimore. It was run by his father, Big George. The crowd was rowdy, the whiskey was cheap, and the patrons were constantly quarrelsome.

Little Georges parents worked twenty hours a day. That left George on his own a lot. He almost never went to school. I was a bum when I was a kid, he said as an adult. He roamed the streets of the teeming city looking for trouble. More often than not, he found it.

Little George stole fruit from the stands that lined the sidewalks. He threw eggs and rotten apples at the carriage drivers as they passed. His parents grew more and more frustrated with his rabble-rousing ways.

No one is sure exactly when, or why, Little Georges parents decided they could no longer care for their son. Its possible that they had to send him away because of a terrible brawl in the saloon. Gunshots were fired; the police were called. A neighbor told the officers, A little kid is living in there. Thats no place for a child. Or perhaps Georges mom just got fed up with her son playing hooky and causing trouble.

So when Little George was seven, his parents asked a local official to declare him incorrigible and send him to a reformatory. On Friday the thirteenth of June in 1902, Big George dropped off his son at his new home: St. Marys Industrial School for Orphans, Delinquent, Incorrigible, and Wayward Boys.