Albert James "Albie" Booth (February 1, 1908 – March 1, 1959) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player. He was a star at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

from 1929 to 1931, and was elected to the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

in 1966. Booth, at only tall and , was known as "Little Boy Blue" "Albie 'Little Boy Blue' Booth"biography at

website (retrieved February 7, 2009). and the "Mighty Atom",Mark F. Bernstein, ''Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), , pp.140-41
excerpt
available at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

). and sportswriters compared him to the fictional Yale sports hero

Frank Merriwell Frank Merriwell is a fictional character appearing in a series of novels and short stories by Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The character appeared in over 300 dime novels between 1896 and 1930 (some between 1927 ...

. A

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

, native, he attended

Hillhouse High School James Hillhouse High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school in New Haven, Connecticut. It serves grades 9–12. James Hillhouse High School is the oldest public high school in New Haven, and is part of the New Haven Public Scho ...

(as well as

Milford Academy Milford Academy is a post-secondary school founded in 1916 as Yale Preparatory School. It has been located in New Berlin, New York since 2004. Although founded as a preparatory school, its current focus is as a school for athletes who have th ...

) before coming to Yale, where he was a hometown favorite. In the single wing offense of Yale coach

Mal Stevens Marvin Allen "Mal" Stevens (April 14, 1900 – December 6, 1979) was an American football player, coach, naval officer, and orthopedic surgeon. He served as the head football coach at Yale University from 1928 to 1932 and at New York University f ...

, Booth played the tailback position and was also the team's kicker. Booth became famous in 1929, his sophomore year, after a spectacular performance against

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

. Booth, not yet a regular starter, entered the game with Yale losing 13–0, and proceeded to rush for 233 yards and score all of Yale's points (2 rushing

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s, a 65-yard punt return touchdown, and 3

extra point The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...

kicks), leading Yale to a 21–13 upset win.

Newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, informa ...

s reported the game with the caption, "Booth 21, Army 13". Against Army the following year, while playing defense early in the game, Booth intercepted an Army pass, but was then swarmed by Army tacklers and injured so severely he had to be carried off on a stretcher, and the teams played to a tie. (Yale architecture professor

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phil ...

, a devoted football fan since his childhood, has claimed that Army intentionally threw the interception to Booth so that the Army players could then injure him and put him out of the game.Richard Conniff
"The Patriarch"
''

Yale Alumni Magazine The ''Yale Alumni Magazine'' is an alumni magazine about Yale University. It was founded in 1891. The ''Magazine''s statement of purpose approved on June 16, 2003 says:''Yale Alumni Magazine''"Statement of purpose" Retrieved April 7, 2007. Y ...

'', March/April 2008.) Hampered by injuries during his junior year, Booth returned to form as a senior. He scored 3 touchdowns against Dartmouth in a 33–33 tie (the highest scoring tie in college football history at that time). His last game was against

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, with both teams entering " The Game" undefeated for the first time since 1913.Bernstein, ''Football: The Ivy League Origins'', p.150
excerpt
available at

). Neither team scored until Booth kicked a late-game

drop kick A drop kick is a type of kick in various codes of football. It involves a player dropping the ball and then kicking it as it touches the ground. Drop kicks are used as a method of restarting play and scoring points in rugby union and rugby league ...

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

to win 3–0, finally prevailing in his third attempt to beat Harvard's varsity team and its star quarterback Barry Wood."Best of the Bulldogs"
''

Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at ...

'', March 3, 1959. Exhausted from the season, Booth was in a hospital with

pleurisy Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis, is inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity (pleurae). This can result in a sharp chest pain while breathing. Occasionally the pain may be a constant dull ache. Other sy ...

while his teammates routed

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

51–14 in the final game, inspired in part by a telegram from Booth that was delivered to the Yale bench shortly before halftime. Booth was also a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

star at Yale. After recovering from pleurisy, in spring 1932, he hit a two-out

grand slam home run In baseball, a grand slam is a home run hit with bases loaded, all three bases occupied by baserunners ("bases loaded"), thereby scoring four run (baseball), runs—the most possible in one play. According to ''The Dickson Baseball Dictionary'', t ...

to beat the Harvard baseball team 4–3. In 1932, Booth married Marion Noble, his childhood sweetheart. After college Booth coached football, played

semi-professional Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes are not participating on a full-time basis, but still receive some payment. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a consid ...

baseball and basketball, worked as a football referee, and worked for an ice-cream manufacturer in New Haven."Events and Discoveries: The Mighty Atom"
''Sports Illustrated'', March 9, 1959. He died of a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 51.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Albie 1908 births 1959 deaths Baseball players from Connecticut Basketball players from Connecticut College Football Hall of Fame inductees Milford Academy alumni Players of American football from New Haven, Connecticut Semi-professional baseball players Yale Bulldogs baseball players Yale Bulldogs football players Yale Bulldogs men's basketball players American men's basketball players