Dorchester Illustration no. 2467 Looking back at sports stars
With the opening of a professional baseball season, we have thoughts of Dorchester sports stars of earlier years.
Rose Pitonoff
Champion Swimmer Rose Pitonoff (from Pittsburgh Dispatch, November, 1910)
Rose Pitonoff was a woman who made her achievement in the world of sport.
Champion Swimmer Rose Pitonoff (from Pittsburgh Dispatch, November, 1910)
When Annette Kellerman, the undisputed champion of the world at the time, attempted to reach Boston Light from Charlestown bridge, in Boston Harbor, and failed, it was the universal opinion that no other feminine swimmer would ever again essay the trip.
Three months ago, however, a fair-haired, stocky, 15-year-old girl from Dorchester, Mass., contending against diverse conditions and treacherous tides, succeed where Annette Kellerman and hundreds of ambitious and expert swimmers all over the world had failed. She established a new record and reached without dispute the much-prized goal which has been fruitlessly sought for years. She can justly claim to be the greatest woman swimmer of the age.
Arthur Roth
Arthur Roth was the first Bostonian to win the Boston Marathon. His time was 2:27:16 in 1916.
From the Boston Globe, Thursday, April 20, 1916
His head tilted backward and lolling from side to side, running on his last ounce of strength, Arthur V. Roth of the Dorchester Club finished yesterday courageously, pugnaciously even, the tremendous task he had imposed upon himself 2h 27m 16 2-5s earlier and won the 20 annual B.A.A. Marathon run. It was the first time a resident of Boston has won the race. …
Arthur V. Roth, the winner, was born in Dorchester, and lives at 331 Ruggles st, Roxbury. He is a tracer in an architect’s office. His races in 1912 and 1913 were principally in 10-mile road races, although in the latter year, he finished 31st in a field of 1500 in the New York Evening Mail modified Marathon race.
But Roth did more than achieve Marathon honors for his native city. He dissolved the three-cornered tie for Marathon supremacy between New York, Canada, and New England. Until yesterday, each section had won six races apiece and one race had gone to a Westerner, Fritz Carlson of Minneapolis. Roth’s win places this section of the country in the lead in point of Marathon winners.