Sports Chuckle: Jeopardy! Contestant Says Babe Ruth Broke Color Barrier

It should be noted that the USC contestant who made that now-famous mistake is in the finals

OK, before we go any further in ridiculing the USC student who made the humorous mistake -- humorous to sports buffs anyway -- it should be noted that the Jeopardy! contestant in question, Xiaoke Ying, won that day's competition and is competing in the finals tonight (Friday).

You can see her and two other contestants compete during the second day of the college two-day final round at 7 p.m. in the Bay Area on ABC. She has a lot of catching up to do in Friday's final day, so she had better hope no questions -- er, rather answers -- about baseball pop up.

So anyway, the video atop this article tells the whole story. No commentary is needed. The reaction of the contestant from the University of Texas also tells the story. (Click here for the Sports Illustrated story.)

I happened to be watching the show when Ying made the inappropriate response, offering Babe Ruth instead of Jackie Robinson as the player who broke baseball's color barrior in 1947, and I have to admit I laughed. For a while. And for a while longer. The fact that she is representing Cal rival USC might have given some Cal fans a little amusement as well.

But the interesting side story to this is that there have been rumors for years that Babe Ruth had some African American blood in him. He denied it, but the rumors persisted.

The issue was the subject of a stories in the Chicago Tribune and Sports Illustrated in 2001, primarily because of an article filmmaker Spike Lee was was scheduled to write in a magazine.

Maybe Xiaoke Ying was really making a forensic statement when she answered Babe Ruth. 

Of course, the fact that the question (answer?) noted that the color barrier was broken in 1947 should have alerted her to the fact that it was Jackie Robinson, the guy about whom a 2013 movie was based, the subject of a 2016 Ken Burns documentary, and the player honored with a Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball.

Photo by Geoff Burke - USA TODAY Sports

Babe Ruth was 52 in 1947 and he died a year later. His last at-bat in a major-league uniform came in 1935.

The thing is, because of her error, I find myself rooting for Xiaoke Ying to win the whole thing, which will earn her $100,000. If she finishes second she gets $50,000, and she can do no worse than earn $25,000.

Who's laughing now?