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D-Day wrote:

Shark wrote:

Former Cy Young winner Bob Welch dies at age 57

This sucks.......wonder what happened??

Andy wrote:

D-Day wrote:

Shark wrote:

Former Cy Young winner Bob Welch dies at age 57

This sucks.......wonder what happened??

Yeah, that was startling to see.

Four-time Super Bowl winner and Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll dies at age 82

Hall of Famer Gwynn passes away at 54

SAN DIEGO -- Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, the greatest Padres player and arguably the best Major League hitter of the latter part of the 20th century, has passed away. Gwynn, who was 54, had been battling salivary gland cancer.

Gwynn's .338 career batting average over 20 seasons -- all of them with the Padres -- is the highest since Ted Williams retired from the Red Sox in 1960 with a .344 average. Gwynn's playing career ended in 2001, and since then he had been the head baseball coach for San Diego State University, where he starred in both baseball and basketball as a collegian, and a part-time analyst on Padres telecasts.

"Mr. Padre" won a record eight National League batting titles -- equal to the number won by Honus Wagner -- and collected 3,141 hits in his career. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007 along with Orioles great Cal Ripken.

Gwynn's battle with cancer began in 2009 when a malignant tumor was removed from his right cheek. Gwynn claimed that the cancer in the salivary gland was the result of his longtime habit of chewing tobacco. The cancer returned twice, and in the latter part of 2012 he again began radiation treatment in an attempt to shrink the tumor.

Gwynn underwent another round of surgery in early 2012 when the nerve that the tumor was wrapped around had to be replaced with one from his shoulder. In each case Gwynn valiantly fought back.

"The whole experience was traumatic because I thought I had it beat, and dang, it came back," Gwynn said during a visit to the Hall of Fame later that year for the induction ceremony.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/mlb/hal ... y=news_mlb

Andy wrote:I was just gonna post that. Yikes.

Didn't know he had cancer.

JIM EVANS: Remembering East Detroit High's Mickey Walker

Mickey Walker’s nephew, Tim DeLong, swears on a stack of vintage New York Giants’ programs the story is true.

“My uncle was captain of the suicide squad for the Giants. That meant it was his responsibility to go racing down the field to break up the wedge on kickoffs,” said DeLong, who grew up in Eastpointe.

The Giants were playing the St. Louis Cardinals. It was during a kickoff when the Cardinals’ All-Pro safety Larry Wilson punched Walker in the face, busting his nose.

“They only had a single bar for a facemask then,” said DeLong, whose mom, Mary, is Mickey Walker’s sister. “He broke my uncle’s nose.”

What is it Plato said; one good fracture deserves another? Eventually, during another kickoff, the two opposing players met again. This time, Walker caught Wilson’s leg in a scissor kick and broke it.

“My uncle was a pretty tough guy,” said DeLong, chuckling.

Mickey Walker, 74, of Pickford died on Saturday, July 19, at War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste Marie.

Mickey’s sister, Mary DeLong, still resides in Eastpointe.

“As a youngster of maybe four or five years old, Mickey was a pretty boy with these blonde curls and blue eyes. He got beat up a lot,” said Mary DeLong. “As he got a little older, he started to hold his own in fights.”

And then some. Mickey Walker was an all-state football player at East Detroit High School. When he was a senior, the Shamrocks went undefeated with a 9-0 record. Walker graduated from high school in 1957.

He went on to play for the legendary Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State University where he was an all-Big Ten linebacker.

After playing in the 1950 Blue-Gray Football Classic and sacking Fran Tarkenton a couple of times, pro scouts took notice. Mickey Walker signed with the New York Giants and played with them for five seasons. During that time, the Giants made it to the championship game three times but lost all three of those games. The Giants fell to the Packers in 1961 and 1962, and then lost to Chicago in the 1963 NFL title game.

His pro football career ended after joining the Lions in 1966 when he broke his neck in practice.

Mickey Walker went on to become a teacher in the Anchor Bay school district. After retiring, he moved with his wife, Margrid, to northern Michigan where they would spend the summers. In the winter, they would go down to the Florida Keys.

Rosalind Hilla worked with Walker at Anchor Bay Elementary School for 14 years. She was a librarian while he taught physical education.

“We shared an office. In fact, we shared a desk. Mickey had one half of the desk and I had the other half,” she said, laughing. “He was a big guy with a very big heart. I don’t know any other way to describe Mickey. If you were his friend, you were his friend for life.”

The size differential between Mickey Walker the teacher and his grade school students was substantial.

“Mickey had to be 6-3, 250 pounds and he was solid. He was a really good teacher. The kids loved him. He’d bark out his instructions and the kids would follow them. He wore this big ring and if someone got out of hand, he’d tap them on the head,” said Hilla.

There’s no doubt that Mickey Walker made an impression on everyone he met.

“He was very outgoing. He was the life of the party; everybody loved him,” said Tim DeLong.

Few loved him more than Mary DeLong, Mickey Walker’s only sibling.

“We were very close. We always communicated. Mickey and his wife would live in the Soo in the summer, and then go down to Marathon for a couple of months in the winter. They would always stay here for a couple of days when they drove back and forth,” said Mary DeLong. “We saw each other on holidays all of the time.”

Mickey Walker had three daughters; Kelly, Shannon and Dawn.

His body was cremated, said his sister. A memorial service in Macomb County will be held later.

“He didn’t want a funeral,” said Mary DeLong. “Mickey was very, very humble. He had a good Irish sense of humor and a good Irish temperament. If you met Mickey, you would like him immediately.”

So a good man is gone. At least Mickey Walker was a good man to almost everyone he met. Larry Wilson was obviously an exception.

The Suburban Avenger wrote:Pete Van Weiren, the play-by-play guy for Braves games on TBS, died Saturday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The body of missing Ohio State defensive lineman Kosta Karageorge was found by Columbus police on Sunday after a search that started after he went missing on Wednesday.

Karageorge, 22, was found dead in a dumpster of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was identified by tattoos at the scene, and a police spokesman said the investigation would continue with both the dumpster and the body of Karageorge being transported to the county morgue.

"At this time, there's a lot of questions that we're still trying to work out," Sgt. Rich Weiner told reporters at the scene. "But he was found inside of the dumpster, the handgun was found inside of the dumpster with him.

"At this time we are able to confirm through tattoos here at the scene that it is the body of Kosta Karageorge."

A police report says Karageorge's mother told authorities he has had concussions and spells of confusion. She said he texted a message Wednesday citing the concussions and saying he was sorry if he was "an embarrassment."