“Rocky Bridges looked like a ballplayer. In fact, he may have looked more like a ballplayer than any other ballplayer who ever lived. His head looked like a sack full of rusty nails, he kept about six inches of chewing tobacco lodged permanently in the upper recesses of his left cheek, and his uniform always …
The smile says it all. Even in the twilight of his baseball career — as on this 1969 Topps card, just before heading into his final season as a regular — Ernie Banks was overjoyed to be playing baseball. I’m too young to have seen Banks play, but when I came into possession of that card, one …
Former major league outfielder Gus Zernial passed away on Thursday at the age of 87. A World War II veteran, he didn’t debut in the majors until he was nearly 26, but he enjoyed an 11-year career with the White Sox, A’s and Tigers, earning All-Star honors once and leading the AL in homers and …
Death comes a-callin’ again at 161st St. I just posted this at Baseball Prospectus: A titan has fallen, and an era has ended. Just two days after legendary Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard’s death, and nine days after celebrating his own 80th birthday, principal Yankees owner George Steinbrenner passed away Tuesday morning due …
Continue reading ‘Bluster and Luster: George Steinbrenner (1930-2010)’ »
Like virtually anyone who set foot in any iteration of Yankee Stadium over the past 60 years — Yankees fan or tourist — I’m greatly saddened to learn of the passing of public address announcer Bob Sheppard. The New York Times obituary‘s first sentence says it all: Bob Sheppard, whose elegant intonation as the public-address …
Sad news regarding the passing of Gary Coleman due to a brain hemorrhage, and in my home state of Utah no less. Diff’rent Strokes was hands-down my favorite TV show when it first went on the air in late 1978, when I was just about to turn nine. While the premise of the show — …
Continue reading ‘Whatchootalkingbout? Gary Coleman (1968-2010)’ »
Sad news out of Los Angeles: Jose Lima died of a heart attack on Sunday morning at the age of 37. An erratic pitcher for parts of 13 major league seasons, Lima was almost always either awfully entertaining or entertainingly awful. He had just appeared at Dodger Stadium two nights earlier, as the Dodgers, the …
Since he retired in 2002, I’m not sure I ever heard Ernie Harwell call a full game, as his career preceded the bountiful period in which fans in any market can see or hear virtually any game. But as a fan steeped in baseball history and old enough to remember, say, the Tigers’ 1984 World …
Malcolm McClaren, the Svengali behind the Sex Pistols, passed away on Thursday at the age of 64. McLaren’s audacious promotion helped turn the Pistols into Public Enemy Number One in England during 1976, and he certainly bears a good deal of responsibility for popularizing punk as a fashion statement via his London boutique, SEX. But …
Continue reading ‘The Swindle Continues: Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010)’ »
Jim Marshall, one of the great rock and roll photographers, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 74. Marshall photographed the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and others. His work was recently featured at a Brooklyn Museum exhibit called “Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to …