McDonald, "Babe" (Patrick J.)
Track and Field
b. July 29, 1878, County Clare, Ireland
d. May 16, 1954
The family name in Ireland was McDonnell, but it was misspelled by an immigration official when his older sister arrived in the U. S., and all members of the family who arrived afterward accepted the new version.
McDonald originally aspired to be a hammer thrower, following the example of such great Irish-American athletes as John Flanagan, Matt McGrath, and Martin Sheridan, but he discovered he was better at the shot put and weight throw.
He won gold medals in the shot put at the 1912 Olympics and the 56-pound weight throw at the 1920 Olympics, when he was forty-two years old, making him the oldest Olympic track and field champion ever. McDonald also won the silver medal in 1912 in an obsolete event, the two-handed aggregate shot put.
A New York City policeman from 1905 until his retirement in 1946, McDonald won AAU outdoor shot put championships in 1911, 1912, 1914, 1919, 1920 and 1922, and he was the indoor champion in 1916 and 1917 and from 1919 through 1921.
When McDonald won the AAU 56-pound weight throw in 1933, less than a month before his fifty-seventh birthday, he became the oldest national track champion in history. He had previously won the event in 1911 and 1914, from 1919 through 1921, and from 1926 through 1929.